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Lt.-Col. a. 


B. McCalmont, 


1803. 















EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 


WRITTEN BY 


ALFRED B. McCALMONT, 

n 


Late Lt.-Col, 142d Regt., Col. 208th Regt. and Brev. Brig.-Gen. 
Pennsylvania Volunteers. 


FROM THE FRONT 

DURING 

THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 


Horatio : “ I saw him once, he was a goodly king.” 

Hamlet: ‘‘He was a man, take him for all in all, 
I shall not look upon his like again.” 


Printed for private circulation by his son, 
Robert McCalmont. 






£(^o[ 








TO THE SURVIVORS 


OF THE 

PETROLEUM GUARDS 


The boys who went out with him, and with whom, but 
for an unjust law, he would have come home, this book 
is respectfully dedicated. 


/ 


INTRODUCTORY. 


A few years ago the late Col. John S. McCalmont pre¬ 
sented to the writer a lot of letters he had received from 
his brother, Gen. Alfred B. McCalmont, that covered 
almost the whole period of the latter’s life. It was the 
writer’s purpose to publish them entire, but a dozen rea¬ 
sons to the contrary prevented. But as the persons who 
would most enjoy reading them are rapidly becoming 
fewer, this reprint of his war letters has been produced. 
Space considerations required that nothing but war inci¬ 
dents be printed, while many of them are of too personal 
a nature to allow of their publication. But it is believed 
that what remains will take the survivor of the 142nd or 
208th once more, step by step, through the scenes of his 
soldierly career, and from time to time unlock the flood¬ 
gates of his own memory as to pleasant occurrences (his 
mind, probably, needs no such stimulous for the horrible 
side of war) and thus enable him to relive in thought 
what he so gallantly lived in deed. Should this end be 
gained in even a small measure the purpose of this publi¬ 
cation will have been amply achieved. 

And now a word on two important subjects. It was 
at first thought that the severe criticisms of President 
Lincoln should be excised, but second thought made this 
seem to be taking unwarrantable liberties with historical 
evidence. Besides, extended inquiry by the writer dem¬ 
onstrated the fact that General McCalmont’s opinion of 
the Commander-in-Chief was not solely his, but was 
pretty generally the opinion at the time of the whole Army 
at the front. In later days his opinion of '‘the man with 
the cap” was completely changed and no one in the coun¬ 
try more sincerely deplored “the deep damnation of his 
taking off.” In the latter days of the war President 
Lincoln and General McCalmont became acquainted, and 


6 


Introductory. 


the writer has a flask, from the mouth of which during 
one of his visits to City Point, the President took ‘‘a 
democratic drink in a democratic manner/' 

Now, as to the change from the 142nd to the 208th. 
General McCalmont explained to the men of the 142nd 
when he asked them their opinion, that it would give him 
promotion—a thing impossible if he remained with his 
depleted regiment. But he told his wife, the “little wo¬ 
man,” who, with a courage and Constance as great as his 
own, cheered and encouraged him through all those 
“troublous times,” that the only consideration that in¬ 
duced him to even think of the change was that by it 
some, at least, of his subordinates could get their well- 
deserved promotions. 

It is to be regretted, possibly, that the accounts of bat¬ 
tles are so meagre. Two obvious causes account for this; 
letters—long ones at least—are the products of leisure, 
not activity, while reports of fights would be handed 
around and often lost to the owner. Still isn’t it better 
on the whole that if any letters were lost it zvas these 
rather than the graphic descriptions of marches, retreats 
and pursuits, or the humorous anecdotes and charming 
descriptions of camp life during inaction. 

R. McC. 

Franklin, Pa., April 23, 1908. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 7 


Fort Massachusetts, near Washington, 
Sept. 5, i 86 ^. 

My Dear Brother: 

We have certainly got along very rapidly. Ten days 
ago my company was at Franklin, and hardly able to 
form a straight line, and here they are encamped in tents, 
and detailed for picket duty as if they were veteran 
troops. I can hardly realize the rapidity of our organiza¬ 
tion. You know something of military life and you will 
know how we must have moved our boots to be here 
armed and equipped and all encamped in Sibley tents 
which we got in Washington. I never worked harder 
than I have worked for the last week. One night at Har¬ 
risburg I sat up and copied twelve rolls of my company 
so as to draw their pay. The next night we were on our 
way to Baltimore where we arrived at 3 o’clock in the 
morning. We marched over to the Camden depot in 
Baltimore in very good order and notwithstanding the 
lateness of the hour flags and handkerchiefs were waved 
from many windows to encourage and cheer us. I think 
that morning and the next were our most dreary. We 
had had no sleep and the solemn deathlike stillness of a 
city an hour before daylight has a chilly effect on the 
nervous system. But there was something bold and con¬ 
fident in the very beating of drums at that hour which 
argued well for our cause. A year ago the President 
himself wouldn’t have done it. 

We were detained at Baltimore until sundown. Other 
regiments had precedence. The day was* beautiful and 
the men enjoyed their stay very much, but seemed eager 
to go on. It was after midnight on Wednesday morn¬ 
ing when we arrived at Washington. The men got a 
cup of coffee and some bread and had to lie down on 
porches and on the bare ground without overcoats. We 
had met a dozen trains between Baltimore and Washing¬ 
ton loaded with the wounded. We had heard news of 


8 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

disaster and defeat and of the probable impending cap¬ 
ture of Washington, and yet when daylight came and our 
boys saw (for the first time to many of them) the Na¬ 
tional Capitol they exhibited no evidence of apprehen¬ 
sion. Early in the morning of Wednesday we were or¬ 
dered to march to the War Department, but on arriving 
at the corner of Seventh and Pennsylvania avenue the 
Colonel (Cummins) joined us and gave me orders to 
march to this point. He did not come with us. We 
marched in good order five miles, only resting twice, and 
again slept on the bare ground, our tents not having 
arrived in time. Yesterday the tents were put up and 
now we look like a portion of the army. We are en¬ 
camped in a beautiful spot just where the Fourteenth 
street road and the Seventh street road meet. 

Well, all the above is very nice, but we have just got 
orders to march to Halls Hill with loo rounds of am¬ 
munition.—Good-bye. We are marching along. The 
world still moves. 

The Colonel has just had a hearty laugh at my expense. 
I had fitted up my tent elegantly, and had it all floored 
and arranged neatly. I was nearly as comfortable as in 
a parlor. 


Fort Massachusetts. 
Sept, p, 1862. 

Dear Brother: 

Our orders to leave this point were countermanded. 
We will probably remain here some time. 

Major Knox was with me all night. His regiment is 
a few miles further out the road. He looks well and is a 
fine soldier. 

Tell Whittaker to put a notice in his paper stating 
that all letters for the Petroleum Guards should be ad¬ 
dressed to 142 Regt. Pa. VoL, Washington, and whether 
we move or not the soldiers will get them in good time. 
Our men are all detailed to cut down the woods in front 
of the fort, and to work on the fortifications. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. g 

Fort Massachusettsj Sept, ip, 1862. 

Friday Morning. 

My Dear Brother: 

It requires as you know some days to get all little 
private arrangements made in camp, so as to be able to 
have your time at your command. The public arrange¬ 
ments are still slower. To get our bread and meat, we 
had to send our requisitions seven miles to Headquarters, 
and to get anything else, we had to go through the same 
motions, besides sending to town for the article, after 
we had got the order. But we have, at last, got a pretty 
good supply of wagons, tents, clothing, forage, ammuni¬ 
tion and provisions, stationery, blanks, etc., and I can 
assure you that they had to be carried in detail, at the 
expense of all our strategy, and that when we captured 
any one item in the list, at the end of two days’ riding 
and writing we thought we had accomplished something 
magnificent. Great was the rejoicing in the evening, 
when the Quartermaster would return, after tiding 
twenty miles circular, and wiping the perspiration from 
his face, announce that he had gained a point—a victory 
over red tape—and that, on the following day some ar¬ 
ticle essential to comfort would certainly arrive. Great, 
too, was the exaltation when our own four wagons with 
four mules to each were driven into the camp; but greater 
still the merriment on discovering that the movements of 
the mules aforesaid were somewhat capricious, and that 
in all probability it would prove to be easier to carry the 
provisions than to drive the stubborn brutes. Several 
men, who had been ambitious to be teamsters, resigned 
in disgust, and their places were soon supplied by men 
from the coal fields and furnaces who understood the 
peculiarities of the animals. So, at last, our equipment 
was complete. We could say with the witch in Macbeth, 
'‘Now I’m furnished. Now I’m furnished.” But human 
beings are never contented. The men are very comfort¬ 
able and they will probably never, during the service, see 
such pleasant quarters, and such accommodations as they 
have here; but still they complain that they came down 
here to fight and not to do furnace work. For my part I 
am not particularly eager to hurry into the field. We 


10 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

will probably have enough of war before we are done. 
The old troops are evidently very tired of their life. 
They could not have sustained another defeat without be¬ 
coming completely demoralized. 

I rode out with Colonel Cummins yesterday to Lees- 
boro—about five or six miles—to escort Major Knox, 
who was going to rejoin the regiment. Knox has re 
gained his health in a good degree, but he is not yet as 
strong as he should be to undergo the fatigue of camp 
duty, and of daily conflicts. I had a great deal of con¬ 
versation with Knox. He has a very clear head a?id gave 
me a very entertaining account of the war on the penin¬ 
sula and at Bull Run. Knox is a much better man every 
way than I ever suspected. I did not know how much 
there was in him. 

Coming back the Colonel and I were riding at a run, 
when his horse fell with him and threw the Colonel over 
his head. The ground was soft and sandy, so that neither 
he nor the animal was hurt; but, for a moment I thought 
that one or the other was killed. Considering the rate 
at which we were going, it was a very lucky escape. 

My horse gives me great satisfaction. He is very 
gentle, and you can ride him all day without tiring. He 
is very much like Ridgway’s in appearance and color, but 
I would not give him for Ridgway’s. I want another 
horse of the rough and tough kind, but I presume I can 
pick one up some place. 


Camp, near Berlin, Md. 
Oct. 2g, 1862. 

My Dear Brother: 

I received yours of the 22nd this morning and was 
delighted to get news from home of so late a date. I 
wrote to my wife yesterday and I presumed that we 
would go across the river to-day; but it is by no means 
certain. It is now nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. 
The Colonel and I were down at Berlin a little while 
ago, and troops and wagons were crossing pretty rapidly 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 11 

on the pontoon bridge. The First Brigade of our Divi¬ 
sion will, however, probably move before us, and it was 
not moving as we came past. Berlin presents just now a 
vivid contrast between the results of war and peace. A 
fine bridge across the river is in ruins, and beside it the 
troops and baggage trains are passing on the military 
structure. Trains of cars are passing on the railroad, 
carrying passengers on their ordinary business, while ar¬ 
tillery wagons are waiting to cross the track. Stopping 
for a moment on the top of the hill overlooking the river 
I felt more sadly than I ever did before in relation to this 
war. But there is no use thinking or talking now. The 
thing must be fought out, and there is no help for it. 

In my letter to my wife I endeavored to give some 
faint idea of the miseries of Sunday night. Fortunately 
such nights are not very frequent under similar circum¬ 
stances. Had we been halted a half an hour sooner we 
could have made some preparations for the weather and 
provided good fires at least; but as we did not halt until 
dark we had poor chances for fuel, and could not select 
the dryest locations. Col. Cummins selected a spot near 
a stone fence and part of the night he slept on the top 
of it. I believe he had the most comfortable berth, but 
you can imagine from that how the rest were provided. 
Poor Hiram, the orderly, got a place near the fire, and 
next to the fence, and nobody had the meanness to dis¬ 
turb him. He seemed to sleep well. I made several in¬ 
effectual efforts to get a nap, and finally gave it up. I 
never passed such a night. Between the constant rain, 
the cold and smoke it was impossible to get rest. I think 
a fellow on horseback would have been much more com¬ 
fortable than I was. 

Since Monday morning the weather has been beautiful; 
but the nights are quite cold. Last night as well as the 
two previous ones we slept without tents and we have 
very poor fare, but I think I can stand anything now 
but being wet. I shall turn my attention to keeping my¬ 
self dry. 

The papers talk of the troops being clamorous for an 
immediate advance. I presume you are aware that this 
is all bosh. I don’t speak now of the new levies. The 


12 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

old officers and men seem to be very much disappointed 
by the advance. They had hopes of getting into winter 
quarters, and were in a very poor condition to move. 
They were very poorly provided with clothes and wagons. 

I will not be allowed under the regulations to carry my 
trunk. I must provide myself with a valise or carpet bag. 
So I shall send my ( I mean your) trunk home, and grin 
and bear it as well as possible. 

Burnside’s Corps is already across the river. People 
at home can talk very learnedly and wisely about onward 
movements. I should like to see one of these knowing 
ones undertake to move a single division across a river. 
One such day as Sunday night utterly defeats the best 
arranged plan of attack. The roads had been perfectly 
dry the day before, and yet artillery wagons with six 
horses to them were in some places unable to move. We 
are already stinted in forage. What we shall do in Vir¬ 
ginia I do not know. I presume my pretty horse will 
starve. I think a great deal of him. He is a very pleas¬ 
ant animal to ride and very gentle. 

I saw General McClellan yesterday. He was riding 
down an obscure street in the little village. Abe Smith, 
of the loth, pointed him out to me. The General was 
directing or overlooking the crossing of the troops. Maj. 
Knox and Capt. Over called at our camp this morning. 
They found me cutting up a hickory tree for firewood. 

I am in right good health, but am entirely satisfied 
that you could not have lived through the war, even if 
you had escaped bullets. It is a very hard life, and must 
be a mere succession of annoyances and vexations to a 
man in delicate health. 

I ought to have two horses to carry my blankets and 
other things; but I presume they would be starved. It 
is impossible to get any hay for the one I have, and 
half the time I get no oats.. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 13 


Near the top of South Mountain and on its Eastern 
slope an officer pointed out to me where Maj. Gen. Reno 
was killed. The thoughts that I have attempted in the 
following verses were suggested then but not expressed 
in writing for some months: 

A. B. McC. 

And here it was, you tell me, that the gallant Reno fell. 

Where the morning’s beams come soonest, but where evening’s 
shadows dwell. 

His manhood’s dawn was early, his fate has been the same; 

So near the mountains summit—so near the height of fame. 

Then leave me for a moment, I would linger here alone. 

For the scene recalls around me dear memories now my own— 
Of the village, of the playground—loves early and sincere. 

All tenderly connected with the form that perished here. 

How we read and hoped together in the happy days long gone. 
Nor dreamed of scenes of war and woe in the dark time com¬ 
ing on; 

As children in yon valley with its Autumn tinge of blue, 

Who little care how wild the steep that bounds their distant view. 

But the gathered storm has broken—the struggle has begun. 

The brother wars with brother, the father with the son 
And contrasts sad and striking most fearfully combine 
To make the features of the strife that crush hearts like thine. 

Yet thou hast perished nobly; for wise men from afar 
Will muse among these lovely scenes where ebbed the tide of war. 
And will link thy name in story with England’s kindred son 
Who said T die content” when Quebec’s bold heights were won. 

The brave have closed thy eyelids—the great have borne thy bier. 
And proudly paid their homage to the soul that knew no fear; 
But other hearts will mourn thee with the summers of the past. 
And wear thy image tenderly while life and memory last. 


Autumn of 1862. 


14 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Camp, near Waterford, 

Oct, ^i, 1862, Friday. 

London Co., Virginia, 
Half way between Lovetsville and 
Waterford. 

My Dear Brother: 

The within letter was not mailed at the proper time, 
and after it was returned to me to-day I doubted the 
propriety of sending it. But perhaps it may still reach 
you as soon as other letters written at Berlin. 

We halted at this camp yesterday, and remained here 
making out the muster rolls for pay. It is now evening, 
and the weather is so mild that a little knot of officers 
are very pleasantly chatting inside of our tent without 
fire, and I am able to write comfortably on a small table 
in the corner. The wagons have overtaken us, and 
brought our camp equipments. Hereafter, I think, we 
will take better care of ourselves and not be caught in 
such a miserable predicament as we were on Sunday 
evening. 

I slept with Major Knox last night. The loth is en¬ 
camped just across the road in the woods. That regi¬ 
ment is in the Third Brigade—ours is in the Second. 
The 121 St (Lt. Col. E. W. Davis) is in the First. So 
we have nearly all Venango companies (but the cavalry) 
in the same Division, and we find ourselves together at 
the close of each day’s march. Knox is in fine health 
and spirits. He thinks we will have a fight very soon. 
His opinion is that the corps on this side of the Blue Ridge 
will attempt to cross the mountain to flank the enemy 
and that a battle will be the result, unless the Confeder¬ 
ates have concluded to abandon the northern part of the 
Shenandoah. Knox does not think that we are going to 
Alexandria. I think that if the enemy retreats toward 
Richmond without a stubborn battle, McClellan will re¬ 
sume his original plan and embark his troops. But I have 
written enough. Good night. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 15 

Camp, near Warrenton, Virginia, 
Nov. 8, 1862, (Saturday). 

My Dear Brother: 

I received your letter yesterday containing the sad in¬ 
telligence of Juliet’s death. She was a good girl and is 
doubtless happier now than any of us can be in this world 
of change and suffering. What a poor farce existence 
would be if there were no hope of a future. 

I wrote to my wife yesterday evening. I have written 
several letters to her and you and if they have reached 
their destination you will have a pretty accurate account 
of our line of march from Berlin on the Potomac to this 
point. But they may have been lost and therefore it 
will do no harm to recapitulate. 

We left Berlin on Thursday, Oct. 30, and encamped 
that evening on Kettoctan creek, near Waterford. We 
stayed at that camp all the next day and left it on Satur¬ 
day morning, Nov. i. On Saturday evening we en¬ 
camped between two lines of half finished railroad. We 
heard heavy firing in the direction of Snickers Gap all 
that Saturday and Sunday. We spent Sunday on picket, 
and on Monday, Nov. 3, about ii o’clock started toward 
Snickers Gap. On Monday evening we came to a little 
village on the main road leading to the Gap. We learned 
during the day that the firing on the two previous days 
had been a fight between Pleasanton’s cavalry and some 
mounted artillery on our side and some of the enemy’s 
cavalry and six thousand infantry. I think it must have 
been a very respectable little affair. It resulted in our 
forces getting possession of Snickers Gap. It is clear 
now to my mind that McClellan must have anticipated 
a much more serious contest at that point, for he was 
moving a very large force in that direction, and they 
have since been moved to this point. From the village 
(Hamilton’s store) perhaps? we moved on near sundown 
on Monday directly toward Snickers Gap, but turned off 
to the left and encamped on the road toward Union. Our 
impression was, up to this time, that we were going into 
the Shenandoah Valley either through Snickers or Ash¬ 
by’s Gap. We marched but a short distance on Tuesday, 
until the whole Division (Meade’s) was halted in a large 


16 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

field, where, after shaking hands with all my friends, I 
wrote a long letter in pencil to my wife. Then we moved 
on, in the afternoon, a little farther and encamped near a 
small stream with a mill dam on it. Some drivers the 
next morning drowned a mule in it and tried to drown 
three more. The camp on Tuesday evening was in a 
beautiful field. We seemed to be surrounded with a 
pretty large force of our own men, all in very compact 
shape. Our whole division was in a twenty-acre field, 
and away around us in other fields in sight and hearing 
were not less than twenty thousand men. They were 
all in good spirits, and the evening being pleasant, the 
drums were beating on every side and a fine brass band 
was playing at no great distance. I think it was by far 
the most agreeable night I have spent in the army. We 
had our tent with us. The wagons are always on hand 
after a pleasant day’s march, when least needed; but 
never come up on a dreary wet evening when they are 
indispensable. 

The next morning our faces were turned eastward. 
The advocates of the Alexandria theory of operations be¬ 
gan to intimate that they knew more than other people 
and that they were now certain we were going to the 
Potomac to embark on transports. When we came on 
to the main turnpike leading to Alexandria at a town 
called Middleburg, and started directly east, the Alex¬ 
andria school of philosophers seemed to be triumphant. 
But we had not gone far, when we observed the First 
Brigade turning to the right, and it soon got noised 
along the ranks that we were going to White Plains 
that very night. The Blue Ridge was now far behind, 
and we came into a mountainous country. As we wound 
up the road from the valley the air felt fresh, keen and 
sharp, reminding one of the atmosphere in the vicinity 
of Rattlesnake tavern. After dark it began to rain, and 
the poor soldiers, wet and shivering, had to march on 
over a rough road until midnight. Then we poked 
through the village of White Plains, a melancholy, de¬ 
serted looking town on the railroad. Nearly all the 
houses are without any occupants but straggling soldiers. 
Fortunately it ceased raining before we reached our camp- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont, 17 

ing place and having procured some hay and covered 
myself with gum blankets, I had a comfortable sleep. 

The next day’s march (Thursday’s) brought us to 
Warrenton, where we now are. The enemy occupied 
the town until we came in sight and we heard of our 
cavalry skirmishing with theirs about four miles from 
Warrenton. But the Rebel force was not very large it 
seems, and we had no serious engagement. I was not 
at all disappointed. Our troops marched through the 
village with colors flying, but without music, and we 
have since been encamped outside and south of the town. 

Yesterday was a rough, cold day. It snowed and the 
wind blew dismally. The scene around was very dreary. 
This spot in summer is a fashionable watering place, but 
it is sad enough now. The stores are closed and the 
people seem to be feeling the iron heel of war. 

Yesterday I met a lawyer whom I knew in Washing¬ 
ton. His name is Chilton. He defended John Brown. 
He helped me to get some things I needed. He says 
the feeling south is more favorable to compromise than 
it was. The defeat of the Republicans in the late elec¬ 
tions has something to do with it, so he says. Chilton 
was opposed to our party when I knew him. 

Our regiment is ordered out on picket. I must close. 


Camp, near Rappahannock Station, 
Saturday, Nov. 15, 1862. 

My Dear Brother: 

We are still at the same point at which we arrived on 
Tuesday. Orders to be ready to march on short notice 
were received yesterday, but things don’t wear an active 
appearance. I see no signs of going to-day at least. It is 
now afternoon. 

On Thursday evening the right wing of our regiment 
went out on picket. The Colonel stayed in camp. I was 
officer of the picket guard. There were two regiments 
on the line beside ours. Half of ours is allowed to re¬ 
lieve the whole of one of the old ones. They are re¬ 
duced to a mere handful. 


2 


18 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

I rode clear over the picket line about dark and sat 
up all night. After the moon rose about two o’clock I 
rode over the line. Again the loth was on the left, but 
the old officers are too sharp to be caught doing any un¬ 
necessary duty. I found Charley Mackey at one post. 
He was wide awake. I guess it was too cold to sleep, 
and he was warming himself by a fire. At one of the 
posts near him the man on guard had left his post and 
was sitting by the fire. I didn’t make any unnecessary 
fuss about it. 

Yesterday I stopped a quartermaster with eight wagons 
who was going out to forage. He intended to make a 
descent on the property of a widow who lived just out¬ 
side of the line. I told him he must have an order from 
the General. He sent a sergeant back for the order, but 
didn’t get it. The quartermaster was a cousin of my 
wife—Sam Evans, of Lancaster. 

Yesterday afternoon some of our picket fires set fire to 
the woods and a large field of dry grass. It made a 
formidable looking conflagration for a time and would 
have spread to a great distance if the wind had not 
changed very suddenly. 

That was a singular escape that Steele’s Hotel made. 
I was much entertained with your account of it. The 
railroad news, too, is interesting. 

I should spin this letter out to some extent, if my fin¬ 
gers were warmer. But the air to-day is cold. Major 
Knox called this morning. He is in good health, but 
much disgusted with the powers that be. He is one of 
the officers who see in McClellan’s removal nothing but 
danger. The army does not appear to be moving as fast 
since McClellan left as it was before. 

Some of our men are being tried to-day by a court- 
martial (division) for marauding. The same men have 
already been punished by standing on a barrel with a 
leg of mutton and the word “Thief” on their backs. So 
you see Rebel property is still protected under the new 
and energetic policy of the administration. I am going 
over at 2 o’clock to see how the proceedings are conducted 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 19 

and to act as counsel for the men, if it is allowable. I 
see they are entitled to counsel, but I don’t know whether 
I will be allowed to appear. 

Well, I have been at the court-martial. General Jack- 
son was President. Capt. Over is a member. A captain 
named Porter is Judge Advocate. His father, A. H. 
Porter, used to keep store in Franklin. I was permitted 
to appear for the accused. I attempted to make the de¬ 
fense that the men were destitute of food, but it was no 
use. I presume my client is convicted. Only one man 
was tried. The court adjourned to meet on Monday. 

This is a clear, cold evening. A fire at the door of 
our tent makes it quite comfortable to write in. I think 
I shall drop a line to my wife before retiring. The camp 
looks very cheerful. A thousand fires are burning all 
around, and drums are beating tattoo. 

Give my love to mother for me, and remember me 
kindly to all friends. I presume you have read the Prince 
de Joineville on McClellan’s campaign. Just now it will 
produce an immense sensation. It has been now a week 
since little George was removed. No material advance 
has been made. In two weeks the army will probably be 
compelled by bad roads and the cold to go into winter 
quarters. If something is not done soon the administra¬ 
tion will be in a bad way. But they are ruined at any 
rate. The President is a miserable, weak-minded man— 
the pliant tool of any person who happens for the time 
to have his confidence. He was very bold from Spring- 
field to Harrisburg. “Nobody was hurt”—but he 
mounted a Scotch cap and cloak to come through Balti¬ 
more. He talked boldly in his inaugural, but simmered 
down into the defensive for one whole month. Got 
brave again and concluded to re-enforce Sumpter and got 
braver when the people called for vengeance. Bull Run 
restored the Scotch cap policy and he determined to con¬ 
ciliate the border states. After he got them he concluded 
they were not essential. He stuck to McClellan till the 
capitol was safe, but deserted him when he was fighting 
before Richmond and called on him for help after the 
second Bull Run. The Scotch cap policy continued to 
prevail until South Mountain and Antietam had saved 


20 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

the country and until McClellan had driven the enemy 
far enough to render the capitol safe again. Such miser¬ 
able shifting and turning would ruin any cause. If the 
country is not divided it will be because God has deter¬ 
mined to preserve it and has chosen the foolish things 
(Lincoln for instance) to confound the wise. He se¬ 
lected ignorant men to preach His gospel that it might 
be evident that the works were His own, and it is possible 
that He intends to demonstrate His power to save our 
nation in spite of the rebels in arms and fools in council. 


Camp, near Stafford Court House. 

Thursday, Nov. 20, 1862. 

My Dear Brother: 

I believe my last letter to you was written at our camp, 
near Rappahannock station on Saturday or Sunday last. 
I have since written to my wife, but as she is at Pittsburg 
you will not probably see the letter. So I will resume 
my chronicle of the glorious 142nd where I left it on 
Sunday. 

On Sunday afternoon Major Knox, Colonel Cummins 
and myself took a ride out around our camp as far as the 
picket lines. We visited a signal station where some offi¬ 
cers were trying to send messages to a point on the moun¬ 
tain ten miles distant, but could not do it for the smoke 
from the camps. The signal officers told me that with 
a clear atmosphere they can send a message forty miles 
without repeating. It seems almost incredible. 

Our conversation during the ride was chiefly on the 
probable change in the direction of the army. We had 
seen a large body of our troops, Cox’s Corps, passing the 
camp on the road toward Fredericksburg. They had 
come from a point west of Warrenton and had been fired 
upon on Saturday by a rebel battery from the opposite 
side of the river. This, together with the fact that it has 
been arranged to burn the bridge across the river at the 
station, were regarded as indications of a change of pro¬ 
gram. On Sunday evening we received orders to be 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 21 

ready to march on Monday morning at 7 o’clock. The 
movement commenced very promptly and after we had 
passed the railroad and heard that the bridge had been 
burned, all doubt about our destination passed away. I 
freely admit that when I was perfectly assured that the 
march lay toward Fredericksburg, I felt a sense of relief. 
The prospect of success at this season with any other 
General than McClellan, on the ground where Pope’s re¬ 
verses began, was very dim. The old officers regarded 
a march toward Gordonsville under a new commander 
as a very dangerous experiment. 

We made twenty miles on Monday’s march. The 
morning was rather cold, with a drizzling rain. Our 
rests were very short, and we did not halt until after 
dark. Then we had to encamp in the woods. The Colonel 
and I made aviiice tent with our gum blankets and slept 
well after a pretty good supper. On Tuesday morning 
we started on in the same direction, but about 11 o’clock, 
while resting in an open field, our whole brigade got 
orders to march in echelon. We usually wait until all 
the other regiments get in motion, and take up their line 
of march along the road. This gives us a longer rest. 
But the change of order took us by surprise. My horse 
had to be bridled and, of course, I was not ready. But 
nobody said anything. We soon joined in the movement. 
Then we were marched by the right flank (the whole di¬ 
vision) into another big field across the road where all 
the troops were halted, each regiment being in line of 
battle. General Reynolds’ staff rode past us two or three 
times. There were some of our troops ahead of us on a 
hill. They seemed to be sending out skirmishers, and we 
heard some little firing in the woods. I have not learned 
that it was either known or believed that the enemy was 
about, at that time, but for a few minutes things looked 
a little strange. I think there was nothing in the move¬ 
ment but what was necessary to change the direction of 
the corps toward this point. At any rate, we left the 
Fredericksburg road there, and came on over a rough 
country covered with little pines to a small creek, where 
we are now halted. I have seen a map of eastern Vir¬ 
ginia to-day, and I have made a rough sketch from mem- 


22 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

ory, to show you where we are. We came here on Tues¬ 
day evening, and it has been raining nearly ever since. 
The longer it continues the worse it gets. Our men have 
been out to-day making corduroy roads. Captain Has¬ 
son was out with a party. He returned this evening wet 
and tired. He had gone out to a point near Stafford 
Court House. He says the roads are terrible, and that 
some wagons he saw could hardly get along. He heard 
that our troops had possession of Falmouth and the 
rebels possession of Fredericksburg. It would seem that 
the intention now is to mass our troops between Aquia 
creek and Fredericksburg on the line of the railroad. 
Whether the plan is to go into winter quarters here or 
embark on transports for James river we don’t know. 
Various speculations are afloat about it. If it is intended 
to go into winter quarters, the movement would, to my 
mind, seem to have been premature. It looks more like 
embarking. One thing is certain, v/e cannot march to 
Richmond by way of Fredericksburg with bad roads at 
this season. 

I walked over to General Meade’s headquarters at 2 
o’clock to attend the court-martial of our marauders. I 
believe I told you about the proceeding. Six of our men 
walked out from camp and saw another soldier (one of 
the old troops) with a calf which he had killed. He pro¬ 
posed that if they would help skin it they should have a 
share. They assented, but after the division of the spoil 
they were arrested. The old soldier escaped. Our men 
were punished on sight by General Reynolds by being 
placed on a barrel with the word “Thief” and the veal on 
their backs for an hour, and now they are being tried by 
court-martial. All this is under the new administration. 
I appeared to-day for the offenders and made a short 
speech. One advantage of doing this will be to learn 
something of proceedings in military courts. ^ 

Well, having told you this before, I presume it will be 
very uninteresting. I was going to tell you that in the 
morning a person could walk to General Meade’s head¬ 
quarters without difficulty, but when I returned this even¬ 
ing the camp was one vast mire. It is now late in the 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 23 

evening and the rain is pouring down steadily. I con¬ 
sider the fall campaign in this region closed. This day 
settles the question. 

I am in good health and spirits. Half of our regiment, 
the left wing, with the Major is out on picket. They 
have a rough night for it. I took the last turn with the 
right wing at the old camp. 


Camp, near A quia Creek, 
Saturday, Nov. 22, 1862. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have already told you that while we lay at the camp 
near Stafford Court House it rained almost incessantly. 
During two or three days large fatigue parties were out 
making corduroy road. The object appeared to be to 
get supplies from Aquia creek. Last evening early we 
got an order to detail one hundred men from our regi¬ 
ment for fatigue duty. The other regiments were required 
to furnish each a proportionate number. The men and 
company officers grumbled considerably at the order, be¬ 
cause many of the soldiers were nearly bare-foot, and 
none of them had even a full supply of hard crackers. 
This state of things, a result of the “masterly evacuation 
of Warrenton,” was bound to become worse, unless we 
either made a road to the new base of supplies, or else 
marched there. It seemed to be the intention at sundown 
yesterday to make the road, but before bed-time a differ¬ 
ent conclusion was arrived at by the General, and we 
got orders after retiring countermanding the detail for 
fatigue duty and requiring us to be ready to march at 7 
this morning “punctually.’' Accordingly at the appointed 
hour, the division was in motion. I stayed behind our 
regiment to see that everything belonging to the Colonel 
and myself was put in our wagons. The camp ground 
looked very desolate after the men had gone. Our tent 
had been pitched near a deserted house under a weeping 
willow. Immediately in front of it was a small private 
burying ground, where some crude head stones and a 


24 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

few locust trees marked the resting place of some of the 
old generation. A few old posts were left of what had 
once been a substantial fence. These were used for fuel 
by the soldiers. The locust trees fared the same fate; 
and when I turned to look at the spot this morning, there 
was nothing left but the willow tree and the grave stones, 
from which time had effaced their rude inscriptions. 
Down below, on the creek, near the camp, appeared to 
be the ruin of some old manufactory. Yesterday the 
sound of drums, the bright fires of the camp, the jeering 
and laughing of a few thousand men had, in spite of dis¬ 
mal weather and gloomy, pine-covered hills, given some 
animation to this dreary and desolate spot, but to-night 
there is nothing there but the ruins of man’s labor, and 
the sad memorials of his mortality. 

The march to-day was attended with no incident worth 
mentioning. It lay through a miserable looking coun¬ 
try, covered with dwarf pine trees and here and there 
marked by the ruins of some old plantation, from which 
fences and houses have disappeared, but where old and 
dying fruit trees gave evidence that men had once lived 
and labored and died or gone away. The soldiers 
marched through the woods, following a blazed track 
not far from a poor country road. Sometimes I had to 
dismount and lead by horse, but generally I could make 
my way on horseback with some little rubbing and 
scratching. We occasionally crossed the road, over which 
by the aid of corduroy improvements, the ambulances, 
buggies, wagons and artillery were making slow and 
tedious progress. We could hear the drivers whipping 
and swearing, and sometimes see a wagon stuck fast in 
the mud. On the way a boy met us with the ‘'Philadel¬ 
phia Inquirer,” and there was a great deal of laughing 
over one of the headings of army news which pithily 
stated in substance, but in large capitals, that the army’s 
advance was not impeded by the rain. Before noon we 
reached Stafford Court House. That is literally the 
thing and nothing else. I saw but three buildings. There 
may have been four—some one said so. One man con¬ 
veyed his opinion of the country by saying, “If this d—d 
hole is the Court House, I wonder what the devil the jail 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 25 

is like.” We did not stop at the county seat, but came 
on without much rest to this place—a point on the Rich¬ 
mond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R. R.—four miles from 
Aquia Creek station, which is the river terminus of the 
road. Here we are encamped on a hill commanding a 
view of the railroad and a considerable portion of the sur¬ 
rounding country. We have already commenced to re¬ 
ceive crackers, for the want of which the men were abso¬ 
lutely suffering. We have got our tent up. Several 
wagons got through about 4 o’clock. They came about 
five miles in nine hours. This is ‘‘onward to Richmond” 
with a vengeance. Some of them are stuck in the mud. 

I shall not advance any opinion about our future move¬ 
ments. You can judge for yourself whether we are go¬ 
ing to Richmond by way of Fredericksburg this season. 
I see by the paper that one wing of the army rests on 
the Rappahannock, the other on the Potomac. This place 
was winter quarters for some of the rebels last year. I 
presume we will be here some days. You had better 
come and see us. 

After coming here to-day I went out and bought a pair 
of chickens and some potatoes. We are very comfort¬ 
able, and as steamboats are running twice a day from 
Aquia Creek to Washington we expect to be comfortable 
while we remain here. The army seems to be rebuilding 
bridges on the railroad and putting it in running order. 
To complete the repairs to Fredericksburg will require 
two weeks. 


Camp at Brook’s Station, Virginia, 
Friday, Nov. 28, 1862. 

My Dear Brother: 

I believe I wrote to you from this place two or three 
days ago, before going out the last time on picket. My 
letters, however, don’t seem to go through regularly. I 
have a vague notion that the powers that be have no great 
anxiety for the rapid transmission of intelligence from 
the soldiers to their friends at home. But I presume all 


26 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

my letters will be forwarded ultimately and perhaps they 
will be considered by indulgent friends worth a perusal, 
even though they contain nothing but what has appeared 
in the papers previously. 

I had rather a pleasant time of it on my last turn for 
picket duty. Our regiment was on the center of the line, 
the loth on the left and the ist, Biddle Robert’s old regi¬ 
ment, on the right—just in the order of the three brigades 
forming Meade’s division. I was officer of the picket, 
and had my headquarters at the house of a man named 
Schooler on the road leading to Aquia Creek. He has a 
son in the Rebel army, and I presume is a secessionist, 
but he gave the officers corn bread and bacon and horse 
feed, and a good room and a fire, for a pecuniary con¬ 
sideration. As it commenced raining about 9 o’clock at 
night and continued without interruption till morning, 
we were of course thankful for even these poor accom¬ 
modations. Besides, the young ladies at the house were 
very chatty and they entertained us during the evening. 
One of them is very pretty. Almost any kind of woman 
looks lovely to a man who hasn’t seen one for some 
weeks. 

Schooler’s house is on a high piece of ground com¬ 
manding a view of the Potomac. I had not seen the 
river since we left Berlin four weeks ago—and after lo¬ 
cating the pickets I rode up to Schooler’s house about 
sundown on Tuesday evening. I was so delighted with 
the sight of the river and the vessels and steamboats that 
I paid no attention to the old man’s invitation to come in, 
but sat on my horse a long time enjoying the beautiful 
view, and thinking about the good old times of peace 
and union when I had passed along that same old river 
before. 

Knox was on the left. He came over to Schooler’s on 
Wednesday morning, and with Major Tully, of the ist, 
we took advantage of our position to ride down to Aquia 
Creek. But we got very little for our ride. Then we 
rode back and had a dinner of bacon and krout, and at 
3 o’clock were relieved. My superstition about moving 
the day after being on picket didn’t hold good. It is 
like all similar notions, founded on a false system of gen- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 27 

eralization, and wasn’t reliable. At any rate we are still 
here, and I predict we will not be twenty miles from 
this point all winter unless we embark on transports. 
But no matter about that. Kverybody likes to make pre¬ 
dictions nowadays, to show his sagacity, but everybody 
sometimes makes mistakes. 

I have just been interrupted. Henry McCalmont—a 
son of John B., who was a son of Uncle Henry, called 
and inquired for Hiram. Hiram McCalmont (Henry 
McCalmont’s son), as I told you, is a grandson of Uncle 
Henry also. I thought Hiram too weak and young for 
hard service, and the Colonel made him orderly. He is 
very useful. On the march he rides the Colonel’s white 
horse. By the way, I have been acting Arnold Plumer 
with my relations in Company I. Prather, a cousin of 
ours, is sick at Washington. I have written to the Secre¬ 
tary of War to procure his discharge. I had previously 
made him orderly sergeant. The other night, very late, 
an order came from headquarters to detail two teamsters 
on short notice. Hugh Shaw, another cousin, was one 
of the lucky men. Derby (John Phoenix, Jr.), in his 
amusing book, hits off in happy style this kind of nepot¬ 
ism. Well, Henry McCalmont (John B’s son) belongs 
to Knox’s company of the 83d. He is a fine looking 
fellow—very unassuming. He has been hit by buckshot 
twice, but he won’t say he was wounded. A Brigadier 
General would have had such a catastrophe telegraphed 

about as follows: “General C.-shot in the face and 

breast. Surgeon has hopes of his recovery.” This morn¬ 
ing I had our regiment out by the Colonel’s leave on bat¬ 
talion drill. We have it now regularly every morning. I 
am learning the confounded thing, but by diligent appli¬ 
cation I might have mastered it all a month ago. The 
trouble was we never had any drills, and I have not had 
an opportunity to book much. I succeeded very well this 
morning—forming divisions—marching to the rear into 
column—deploying column—changing direction in col¬ 
umn closed in mass and “all that sort of thing,” as Colonel 
Magilton would say. I had two questions raised by the 
Major and Captain Warren, of Mercer, but I was right 
both times, as they have since admitted. If I had a regi- 



28 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

merit of my own I should take great pride in drilling it, 
and great satisfaction in having its administrative busi¬ 
ness properly attended to. Colonel Cummins has ex¬ 
cellent common sense and judgment, but he always takes 
the easiest way of doing everything and won’t drill the 
regiment unless he is required to. He says it’s hard on 
the men to turn out without shoes. He has a very kind 
heart. 


Camp near Brook's Station, Virginia, 
Wednesday, Dec. 1862. 

My Dear Brother: 

I spent part of this day in trying to find out how to get 
an order to send Colonel Cummins to a general hospital, 
and in preparing the papers after I had learned the way. 
The Colonel became sick on Friday evening. He was 
at his worst on Monday afternoon, when he consented 
that I should telegraph to his wife. He is now better 
and out of all danger, but if he had been dying it would 
have been all the same so far as his removal was con¬ 
cerned. He would have had to remain in a cold tent 
without any of the conveniences which a sick man ought 
to have, and breathe his last there without his wife or 
friends near him. He first applied for a leave of ab¬ 
sence; or rather our Major, who knows a great deal, be¬ 
cause he was in the three months’ service, undertook to 
make the application for him. Well, the application went 
on from the regimental headquarters to brigade headquar¬ 
ters and from brigade headquarters to division headquar¬ 
ters and so on, stopping the usual length of time at each, 
until it came to somebody who decided that the surgeon’s 
certificate wasn’t strong enough. He should have stated 
that further confinement in camp would prove fatal or 
produce permanent disability, or words to that effect. So, 
of course, the application came back. Yesterday evening 
I concluded to see if something couldn’t be done by per¬ 
sonal application, and I was encouraged by the Medical 
Director to change the form of the application, and ask 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 29 

to have the ("olonel removed to a general hospital. So 
I started this morning, and like Lord Lovell, I rode and 
I rode, and after writing the application over three times 
in consequence of confounding two men named Green— 
one the Brigade Surgeon, and the other Adjutant on 
General Franklin’s staff, I at last got it up to the Med¬ 
ical Director, who assured me that it would be acted on 
to-morrow and that it would doubtless succeed. This 
result was particularly satisfactory, inasmuch as when I 
returned to our quarters I found the Colonel sitting by a 
fire in Captain Hasson’s tent and in such improved 
health that if the order should come it will be a con¬ 
venient means of getting our winter supplies from Wash¬ 
ington by enabling him to go there ; and if it does not 
come no person will be hurt. 

After finishing this piece of business I got out a four- 
horse wagon and rode out myself on horseback to guide 
the teamster to Schooler’s on the picket line, who, as I 
had noticed when at his house, had a large quantity of 
old iron saved from the ruins of the buildings burned 
last summer at Aquia Creek. I purchased from him, and 
brought back a large stove in fragments and some bars 
of iron, a gridiron and an iron bedstead. Then I got 
Hiram and Bowers to dig a neat ditch for a flue, and 
covered it with the stove plates and earth. Then we 
made a chimney, and the thing, on experiment, proved 
to be a complete success and one of the best contrivances 
of the kind in the division. Then we were preparing to 
move our tent so as to have the flue running entirely 
through and under it, when Colonel Magilton’s orderly 
handed me a small slip of paper. It was only an order 
for the troops of this brigade to be ready to march to¬ 
morrow morning at daylight. This spoiled, for a time, 
all my plans, and I got some jokes on my labor. Then 
we all commenced to prepare for the move. Other orders 
came to have six days’ rations, and for distribution of 
clothing, etc., etc., and finally about 8 o’clock we got an 
order countermanding the first one. So we do not go 
to-morrow, but I presume we will go soon. We think 
the march will not be a long one, unless the troops should 
be convoyed to the James river by transports. I am too 


30 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

cold to bore you with my ideas of our destination, and 
they would not be of much value. I am writing by a 
pine log fire in front of our tent. The night is calm and 
growing very cold. I must quit and retire. 


Camp near Belle Plains, Virginia, 
Jan. IS, i86s> 

My Dear Brother: 

The mail yesterday brought me two letters, one from 
you and one from my wife, both dated the sixth. They 
were very interesting. I feel somewhat disappointed now 
unless I hear from home every day or two. 

I have not much to write about. All is dull and un¬ 
changed here. We have no orders now to be ready to 
move. Our court-martial still keeps in session every day 
trying a lot of trivial charges. We sit in a small dark 
cabin, very poorly heated, and without a floor. To-day 
we had four cases to try, all growing out of the whisky 
ration issued on the 17th of December. I am in hopes 
that we shall be able to get through, however, in another 
week. 

Our first case was that of Lieut. Col. Peter Baldy, of 
the 12th, who after the second Bull Run left his regi¬ 
ment and remained absent without leave, more than two 
months. He was found guilty and sentenced to be dis¬ 
missed. Colonel Sickles, of the 4th, commanding the 
division, assumed the responsibility of disapproving the 
sentence, and ordered Baldy to resume his sword. It 
was a pretty big stretch of authority for an acting divi¬ 
sion commander. I suppose, however, it was all right, 
though the facts would not warrant it, but yesterday an 
order from corps headquarters pronounced Colonel Sick¬ 
les’ disapproval illegal and directed Lieut. Col. Baldy 
to remain in arrest until his case can be determined or 
reviewed by higher authority. Baldy’s case was the first 
one we tried, and it was the only one of any importance 
that came before us. 

I have to stay at the court every day until 2 or 3 o’clock. 
Then after dinner I attend to the business of the regi- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 31 

ment, signing requisitions, etc., and on clear days we 
have a dress parade. By the time I have finished it is 
dark, and then occasionally some old friend steps in to 
spend an hour. Colonel Cummins does not board nor 
lodge at brigade headquarters. He has not changed his 
mode of life, and does not put on airs in consequence of 
being an acting Brigadier. 

But though our life is monotonous time goes very fast. 
I am surprised to think that this month is so nearly half 
gone. Winter will soon be over, and then the operations 
of spring will commence. We have not yet received any 
pay, and I presume we will have to wait until Congress 
passes a bill to authorize the issue of more money. 

You are right about the Abbott note. I am much more 
anxious now to have a reputation for honesty than for 
being a soldier. It will be probably much harder to es¬ 
tablish. If I should never return, I hope that my debts 
will all be paid out of my share of father’s estate. It 
ought to be sufficient to cover them, and give my wife 
and children a home, and leave her property unembar¬ 
rassed. J mention this now because there is no immedi¬ 
ate apprehension of a battle. This kind of talk on the 
eve of a fight might make you feel as if I had some 
gloomy forebodings, which is not the case. 

Oliver wants the table to get supper. 


Camp near Belle Plains, Virginia, 
Jan. 17, 186^. 

My Dear Wife: 

I received your letter of the 9th to-day. I was some¬ 
what surprised to hear that you do not receive my letters 
regularly. I write nearly every day to you or John. 
Occasionally I have allowed two days to pass without 
writing, but this is very rare. Your letters reach me 
very regularly now. They are six or seven days coming, 
but they arrive safely, I believe. It is possible that the 
War Department may for sufficient reasons detain the 
army mail a few days so as to prevent an early publica¬ 
tion of our position or intended movements. I think this 


32 Extracts From Letters of General McCalnwnt. 

has been done more than once since I commenced soldier¬ 
ing. Perhaps it is good policy, though somewhat annoy¬ 
ing to friends at home. 

At last the Reserves have gotten an answer from the 
Secretary of War favorable to their application, as made 
by the Governor, and they are to go back to Washington 
or Pennsylvania as soon as their place can be filled. I 
presume they will leave before a week, but it seems our 
regiment is not going with them. I don’t know who 
our new associates will be, and I do not care much. As 
I said before, I have made up my mind not to care much 
about anything. The I2ist will probably be with us, 
and its officers are a pretty good set of men, some of 
them very intelligent. 

James Elliott, of Company I (my old company), is 
alive. He was taken prisoner and sent to Richmond. I 
am glad he is safe. I told you in a former letter that he 
was reported killed, but that I had some doubts about it. 
I never wrote to the family because I could not write any¬ 
thing but what would have been discouraging. My rea¬ 
sons for believing that Jim was alive were founded on a 
feature in his character strongly akin to an excess of 
prudence. 

It seems there is some kind of an order for marching 
at division headquarters. We understand that we are to 
move in some direction on Monday, but we have not got¬ 
ten the order yet. 

I am still sitting every day on a court-martial. I am 
President of the Court. I am also acting as commander 
of the regiment. Colonel Cummins is commanding the 
Second Brigade. I mention this because you do not 
seem to understand it. I am not promoted. John can 
explain it to you. General Meade, you know, was as¬ 
signed to a new command. Colonel Magilton, who com¬ 
manded the Second Brigade, resigned about the same 
time. Colonel Sickle, then being the oldest Colonel in 
the division, was assigned to the command of the divi¬ 
sion. Colonel Cummins was then the only Colonel in 
the Second Brigade. All this was the result of the pe¬ 
culiar features of the act organizing the Pennsylvania 
Reserves. If you will read the Governor’s special mes- 


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Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 33 

sage you will see that a great many regiments in the 
division are commanded by captains, for instance, the 
First Regiment (Colonel Biddle Roberts’) is now com¬ 
manded by a Captain (Tally). The Eighth, Dr. Hays’ 
regiment, is commanded by a Major, the Colonel (Dr. 
George S. Hays) and Lieut. Col. John Duncan, having 
resigned. There have been no promotions among the 
officers of the Reserves, because the officers had to be 
elected. The Governor would not commission them with¬ 
out an election, and the division commanders would not 
allow an election to be held. This is not the case with 
any other troops. Read the Governor’s special message 
and you will understand. As our regiment does not be¬ 
long to the Reserves and was not organized under the 
same Act of Assembly, our case is different, and our pro¬ 
motions are regular. Colonel Cummins will, I presume, 
cease to act as Brigadier in a few days, and then I will 
cease to have command. Now you know all about it. 
I have used entirely too many words. 

The weather is quite cold again. It is very change¬ 
able. I was threatened with a sore throat yesterday, but 
the symptoms have all gone. I am now in excellent 
health and in good spirits. 

Major Knox, of Clarion, left without giving us any 
notice of his going. He was in our tent the evening be¬ 
fore he left, but he did not get his leave of absence until 
that night. 

I saw Lieut. Col. Rogers, of Franklin, yesterday. He 
and Captain Kennedy called, both looking very well. 
Rogers is getting fat. 

My brown horse has recovered from his wound so far 
that I can ride him again. I rode him to-day a mile or 
two. He is a very pleasant animal for my use, and I 
think a great deal of him. 

Tell Colonel Kerr that the horse which he gave me is 
doing well and is very useful. I feel under great obli¬ 
gations to him. 

We have not gotten a cent of pay yet. Hurrah for Mr. 
Chase, the great financier. Grin and bear a little longer. 

Your husband, 

A. B. McCalmont. 


3 


34 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmonf. 

Camp near Belle Plainsj Virginia^ 
Feb. I, 1863. 

My Dear Wife: 

The Paymaster arrived yesterday and settled with our 
regiment for the months of September and October. I 
received $334. So you perceive my yearly allowance is 
about $2,000, something less than we formerly lived on, 
but I presume we can stand it. I cannot safely send you 
any large amount by mail, but lest you may be in great 
need, I shall risk enclosing $22 in this letter and continue 
to make small remittances as often as I write. 

Major Louis E. Johnson paid us a visit. He is a son 
of Reverdy Johnson, the Maryland United States Sena¬ 
tor, and formerly Attorney General. The Major, who 
is our Paymaster, is a fine looking fellow, a little on the 
Biddle Roberts style, is quite polished and at the same 
time very willing to take things as they come and make 
the best of them. He had two clerks with him, both very 
agreeable fellows. I would have supposed they were city 
editors or reporters from their interest in everything and 
their turn for observation. The party spent two nights 
in our , cabin and this morning the sutler furnished a 
wagon and Hiram went as guide to conduct the gentle¬ 
men to the camp of the Third Indiana Cavalry. Hiram 
says they had a rough time of it. Major Johnson rode 
my spotted horse. The wagon stuck fast in the mud. 
They sent back to an artillery battery for horses to draw 
it out. Then with the aid of four horses they succeeded 
in reaching the cavalry camp before sundown. The 
whole distance traveled was about three miles. 

While the party remained here we had a very pleasant 
time of it. We gave them short cake and such other 
similar luxuries as our circumstances would afford, and 
they were polite enough to appear to be very much pleased. 

There is a great difference in paymasters. Gideon I. 
Ball, of Erie, is one. He is paying a regiment up in 
the First Brigade. They say he has been two days in 
paying one company, and that where a soldier’s pay has 
odd cents in it less than five, Gideon pockets the small 
amount himself. Johnson is above this small business. 
To illustrate the difference, if a soldier’s pay amounted 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 35 

to $16.83, would give him $16.80, and Johnson 

$16.85. Our whole regiment appears to be much pleased 
with Major Johnson. He does not make any unneces¬ 
sary objections to the rolls, and does the business with 
great promptness. 

I went up to Division Headquarters this afternoon and 
spent an hour with Lieutenant Colonel Henderson and 
Colonel Sickle, who commands the Division in General 
Doubleday’s absence. They were not able to give me any 
fresh information about the proposed withdrawal of the 
Pennsylvania Reserves to Washington, nor could they 
tell whether our regiment is to go along. We have heard 
various rumors about it, as for instance one that General 
Hooker was opposed to the Reserves going. But I think 
from General Doubleday’s dispatch that they will cer¬ 
tainly leave. Whether we go too is uncertain. 

The roads are still miserable. It is now raining. The 
snow is nearly all gone. To-day we sent down horses to 
the landing and carried up corn and oats in bags. The 
poor horses had not eaten anything for twenty-four 
hours. 

You need not apprehend a battle very soon even if Gen¬ 
eral Hooker is a great fighter. 

I am in excellent health, but this is an awfully dull lo¬ 
cality. The only amusement we have is to see the mule 
teams sticking in the mud and getting pulled out. Love 
to all. 


Camp near Belle Plains, Virginia, 
Feb, 4, 1863. 

My Dear Brother: 

I am no longer on duty in the court-martial. A new 
one has been organized. 

We have received pay for two months up to October 
31, 1862. Out of the $334 thus paid I have to clear up 
my debts here. The rest I will send to you and my wife. 
I have sent her in one letter $22, and in another $10. I 
do not like to risk sending a large amount by mail. The 


36 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

mails here are like everything else, they go my military 
routine. We are only a mile and a half from the steam¬ 
boat landing; but our letters go first to Brigade Head¬ 
quarters, then to Division Headquarters, one mile due 
west; then to Corps Headquarters, three miles further 
west; then to Grand Division Headquarters, a little fur¬ 
ther toward the Rappahannock, and finally to the Head¬ 
quarters of the Army of the Potomac, stopping, I believe, 
at each Headquarters about twelve or twenty-four hours. 
After going through this interesting preliminary transi¬ 
tion they are sent down to Falmouth and thence by rail 
over to the Potomac river from which they started. The 
system is admirable. One cannot help admiring its order, 
its regularity and precision; but like all other workings of 
the same system, it is impossible for a plain man to see 
how the great and desirable result of getting a letter to 
its destination is hastened by the process. There is a 
great deal more of method for the sake of method in the 
army, than of method for the sake of substance. 

This morning is very cold. Last night even with a big 
fire in our cabin we could hardly make ourselves com¬ 
fortable. I presume we shall have several severe nights 
now. 

There is no news this morning about the Reserves go¬ 
ing to Washington; but I believe they will go soon. 
They are organizing a Division to take their place. This 
was the last intelligence from General Doubleday, who is 
at Washington. Colonel Sickle, of the Fourth, is still 
temporarily in command of this Division, Colonel Cum¬ 
mins temporarily in command of the Second Brigade, and 
I am temporarily in command of this regiment. 

The changes in the army and the recent operations 
have produced a very marked dissatisfaction. There is 
but one opinion in regard to the Administration, and it is 
very freely expressed. The directing power, wherever it 
may be, is ridiculously incompetent. 

But it is too cold to write much. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 2)7 
Harrisburg. May 8, i86^. 

Hon. John S. McCalmont: 

Your brother Alfred telegraphs me that neither him¬ 
self nor any of the Venango boys are injured. 

E. C. Wilson. 


Camp below Falmouth, 
May 8, i86j. 

My Dear Brother: 

I wrote a long letter to my wife to-day giving her a 
minute account of myself during the past week. I have 
just learned from Lieutenant Gray that she has gone to 
Butler, and you will not therefore see the letter immedi¬ 
ately, so I shall give you a line or two for your own in¬ 
formation. 

You know by the papers that our army is all back on 
the north side of the Rappahannock. I say all, but it is 
sad to reflect that nearly 2,000 of them are lying in the 
pine woods, many of them to rot without a burial. I wish 
some of our war spouting libellers of the Gospel of Peace 
could see the battlefield. 

You know, too, by the dispatches I sent, if they went 
through, that our Venango boys in Biddle’s regiment and 
ours are safe. Thank God we have been spared by a 
singular combination of chances that promised just the 
reverse. They seemed determined to put us in first, and 
yet it so happened that the First Corps did not sustain 
any serious loss. I will tell you all about it. 

You know, when I wrote last a week ago, our corps 
was operating at a pontoon bridge below Fredericksburg, 
just opposite where Meade’s division fought on the 13th 
of December, and about a mile or less from where I now 
write. Robinson’s division and Doubleday’s remained 
on this side of the river. Wadsworth’s, the First Divi¬ 
sion, had crossed, had planted a battery, and dug some 
rifle pits. General Hooker had informed the army by a 
general order that the enemy was in a position where 
he must come out from behind his entrenchments and be 


38 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

defeated, or else ingloriously retreat. But on Friday an 
order came just as I was closing my former letter that 
we should cross at 3 o’clock and storm the heights. 
Three o’clock came, then 4, then 5, and still no move¬ 
ment. The order had evidently been countermanded. I 
have not learned yet what was wrong, but I was not 
sorry. The men had no heart for the work. It was 
simply to advance a mile over a level plain raked by the 
enemy’s guns, and take the rifle pits in the woods. I 
believe we should have failed, but the next day his force 
at that point was diminished. 

On Friday night we slept in the ravine near the pon¬ 
toon bridge. Early Saturday morning. May 2nd, we 
received orders to march. We soon understood that we 
were to go up the river to join Hooker. It was a bright, 
beautiful morning and our division had just gotten under 
arms and were about moving out of the ravine, when 
the enemy’s batteries across the river opened on us. Their 
shot and shell were all directed toward us. One shell 
passed close over my head; I was on my horse, and 
struck the Colonel’s horse on the head, tearing off the 
poor animal’s lower jaw and part of the upper. He fell 
and got up and looked about him. It was a pitiable sight. 
Then, as the regiment marched off, he followed it. In a 
short time afterward a battery man killed him to put him 
out of pain. (Remainder of letter lost.) 


My Dear Brother: 


Camp near Falmouth, 
Monday, May ii, 186 


I have nothing new to write. We are lying in the 
woods five miles below Falmouth and about a mile from 
the Rappahannock, just where we were when I wrote 
last. There are some indications of preparation for a 
move; but I expect that we will remain here several days 
1 think there will be foreign interference before a 
month, based on the repulses at Charlestown, Vicksburg 
and the Rappahannock. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 39^ 

army could not hold its position on the other 
.'Side of the river a week ago, it certainly cannot advance 
now. We are losing troops daily by the expiration of 
their time. All the nine-month men (ten regiments), 
and all the New York two-year men are about leaving! 
The army is also much dispirited. 


Camp near White Oak Church, Virginia, 

^ May 20, 1863. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have received two letters from you recently. The 
last was dated May 13, and contained the news of the 
great oil fire and the burning of the bridge at Franklin. 
The other letter was about business. 

Coop. Cochran paid us a visit on Sunday. It was a 
beautiful day. We went down into the fields near the 
Rappahannock, and with the aid of an opera glass viewed 
the scene of the old battle. Coop, had no difficulty in 
recognizing the precise spot where the Tenth went in, 
and where General Jackson was killed. Cattle were 
quietly grazing on the broad and beautiful ground. Little 
birds were singing around us. Pickets on each side of 
the river were lazily lounging on their posts, and seemed 
to manifest a mutual contempt for the sublime art of 
war. I doubt whether you could find a more striking 
contrast than the plains below Fredericksburg have pre¬ 
sented very often within the last few months. But you 
know how lovely they are in the spring. 

On Monday morning Coop, left us. Colonel Cummins 
and I went with him up to the Falmouth station. There 
we got some articles for our mess. On returning we 
found our tents all down and the regiment ready to move. 
We soon learned that there was to be a change of camp, 
and that some learned doctor was at the bottom of the 
movement. He had read in some book that large bodies 
of men have better health when encamped in open fields 
than when lying in the woods. Accordingly we are now 
enjoying all the sanitary advantages of a spot destitute 


40 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

of vegetation, poorly supplied with water, and where 
every breeze comes tainted with the perfumes of defunct 
horses. 

In spite of all these disadvantages the men have by 
great industry in two days made the prettiest camp we 
have ever enjoyed. They carried pine trees nearly a 
mile, and now the streets are all in beautiful order. 

Our paroled prisoners and sick men have been return¬ 
ing in great numbers. Among those who have come 
back to this regiment during the past week was James 
Elliott, of Franklin, who was taken prisoner December 
13. He is in very good health. 

On Monday afternoon I rode over to the camp of the 
Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry at Potomac Creek railroad 
bridge. I remained there till yesterday evening. Colonel 

Kerr and Lieut. Col. R- were leaving. They have 

both resigned, Kerr on account of permanent ill health. 
He appears to be quite weak. He cannot ride a horse 
faster than a walk without suffering pain. Kerr was 
very kind to me. He gave me a good military coat, a 
pair of good gauntlets and a sabre, for all of which he 

had no further use. Colonel R- had some difficulty 

with his regimental line officers. He was not well liked. 
He requested me to ask Whittaker to say that he had a 
good reputation as an officer. His resignation was ac¬ 
cepted on the ground of his incompetency. But he is 
honorably discharged, and if Whit, is willing to state 
the latter fact without alluding to the former, it will be 

fully as much as R- has any right to expect. So 

many Venango men have left the service that I presume 
the rest of us will have to see the thing through. 

It is hard to see where the war is going to end. I 
look for foreign interference very soon, based on the 
Charlestown and Fredericksburg repulses. England and 
France have been waiting for a good opportunity to act; 
and when they do act they will be in earnest. In rela¬ 
tion to this meddling with our affairs by the powers of 
Europe, I feel very much as I did when fighting with 
Ben McCullough at Washington. Some fellow ran for 
the police. I did not holler for the police myself, of 





Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 41 

course, but I thought they were a plagued long time 
coming. 

This army is much reduced. The loss in killed, 
wounded, and prisoners in the last fight is not far from 
twenty thousand. The loss by New York two-year men 
and Pennsylvania and New Jersey nine-month men leav¬ 
ing will not be less than 30,000 more. A regiment goes 
every day, and some days more. Negro brigades cannot 
be organized fast enough to supply this drain. So you 
see the prospect of another immediate advance across the 
Rappahannock is not very imminent. Indeed we will 
do well, under present circumstances, to hold our own. 
But I have written all the news I had. You can make 
reflections for yourself. 


Camp near White Oak Church, Virginia, 
May 22, i86j. 

My Dear Brother: 

I am in my usual good health, with the exception of 
some bilious symptoms, which a little attention to diet 
will remove. The army is lying very quietly in the sun. 
It is too warm to do anything. 

Colonel Cummins, would, I think, like to give up his 
present position if he could get some appointment that 
would justify him in resigning. He is a strong Repub¬ 
lican as you know. Of course, his resignation would 
inure to my benefit. If you should be in Harrisburg soon 
or holding any correspondence with Curtin you might 
mention this thing. Cummins is a pretty good politician. 
You know he was elected Sheriff of Somerset county. 

I have nothing new to write. You might visit the 
army now, and perhaps get leave to bring some one with 
you. But the camps are mostly disagreeable from the 
presence of dead horses. It seems impossible to burn 
them up fast enough. 

P. S. — Private. 

There has been a misunderstanding between Reynolds 
and Hooker. Reynolds is a thorough soldier and some- 


42 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

what disgusted with humbug. I am told that either Rey¬ 
nolds or Hooker will be relieved, or else our corps will 
be assigned to duty elsewhere. 

Our First and Second Brigades, constituting Double¬ 
day’s division, will be soon consolidated. Then some 
new troops will be added, possibly the Pennsylvania Re¬ 
serves. There might be such a thing as taking us up to 
join the Reserves at Washington. There is some change 
brewing. 


Centreville, Virginia, 
June i6, (Tuesday). 

My Dear Brother: 

I presume you know by the papers that the army has 
come back or is coming to the neighborhood of Wash¬ 
ington. 

Our corps left camp near White Oak Church on Fri¬ 
day morning. The Sixth Corps remained a day longer, 
and the pontoon bridge was still kept in its position. 
But I learn from an eye witness that that corps burned 
the depot at Falmouth and left on Saturday. 

Our march on Friday was through the dust and up 
the Rappahannock on the main road toward Warrenton. 
The day was warm and we had, of course, clouds of 
dust. Encamped Friday evening at a creek. Had marched 
over twenty miles. We had marched in a circuitous 
route, probably to deceive the enemy, crossing the Aquia 
railroad at Stonemans Switch. 

On Saturday we started early and rested frequently. 
The dust was intolerable at times. We arrived at Beal- 
ton Station, on the Orange & Alexandria R. R. in the 
afternoon. Then we turned to the left and went a mile. 
It looked like a move to Gordonsville, but it was only 
to get water, which was very scarce. We had a slight 
thunder shower on Saturday evening. It cooled the air 
and we rested comfortably. 

On Sunday morning we started early. We were first 
drawn up in line of battle and ordered to load. There 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 43 

was a report that the enemy was crossing at a point west 
of Warrenton. We came along the Orange & Alexan¬ 
dria R. R. At noon we were at Warrenton Junction. 
There I saw John Crain, our cousin, who was well. He 
said the enemy was strong up the river. He had been 
in the cavalry fight. The march on Sunday morning 
was pleasant, but the sun came out at noon, and then it 
was hot and dusty. We marched until midnight, resting 
frequently. Our day's and night's march ended at Man- 
asses Junction, where we rested till Monday, yesterday 
morning. 

On Monday morning we resumed our march and came 
to Centreville. We got water and took lunch at Bull 
Run. We are now under orders and in readiness to 
move again. I do not know how far we are going to¬ 
day, but I presume not more than a few miles, unless it is 
the intention to go up to the right farther. 

I am in fine health. 

There is no use in commenting on the move nor 
on the results following Radical mismanagement. Six 
months since McClellan was removed, six months of 
blunder, disaster and defeat. 


Camp near Broad Run, London Co., Va., 
Sunday, June 21, i86j. 

My Dear Brother: 

We are now lying at Broad Run, near London and 
Hampshire or Alexandria railroad. The First and Sec¬ 
ond Divisions are on the run below us. We are half a 
mile above the railroad. Leesburg is about ten miles 
distant. The Potomac at its nearest point is about five 
miles off. I presume you know the location pretty well. 
The Eleventh and Twelfth Corps are understood to be 
at Leesburg. The Fifth is on our left. The Third is at 
or near Centreville, and the rest somewhere else on the 
line between Centreville and Leesburg. From all the 
movements I presume it is intended to wait here for Lee 
to attack the whole army, which he will probably not do. 


* 


44 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

I have said the Twelfth Corps was at Leesburg, and I 
was so informed, but I think at least a large portion of 
that corps must be at Alexandria. 

After arriving at Broad Run on Thursday I was made 
officer of picket and ordered to locate the line. My in¬ 
structions from General Doubleday were very vague, 
but I rode over the country until I got the points in my 
head and then established the line. A heavy thunder 
storm came on while I was riding the line, and I got a 
complete wetting. It rained all Thursday night. I got 
good eating at Greenlus House, but I did not wish to 
sleep. On Friday morning very early we heard cannon 
firing in three directions. I thought the ball was open¬ 
ing, but the firing did not last long. Then I lay down 
on Greenlus’ floor and slept like a top till the relief came 
out. 

Yesterday, in consequence of the First and Second Di¬ 
visions coming up, the picket line was thrown out far¬ 
ther. General Rowley went out to change it, and I went 
with him. We did not meet with any adventure. The 
picket line now extends from the Leesburg pike on the 

right, through-station on the railroad, and along 

the old Ox road to a point on Broad Run about a mile 
above our camp. 

On Friday evening at 9 o’clock we got orders to pack 
up and move immediately. I was writing a note to my 
wife. It was raining heavily. Colonel Cummins and I 
concluded to avail ourselves, of the last minute, and the 
order was soon countermanded, but the Second Brigade 
did not get the countermand, and their officers and men 
stood in line in a drenching rain until morning. It was 
a cruel blunder, but we see many such. Army life is not 
very pleasant at best, but our Generals by a want of re¬ 
flection or interest in their commands make the service 
ten-fold more irksome than it should be. For instance, 
coming from Warrenton Junction to Manasses Junction 
over a plain road, we were marched four miles out of 
our way. This was on Sunday and it was a boiling hot 
day. To make up for it we had to march till midnight 
to reach Manasses Junction. 

I have no idea what is coming. I thought when we 



V 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 45 

fell back that Lee had been heavily re-inforced, and that 
a big battle was certain, but it is by no means clear that 
our Generals have not been completely deceived. 


Camp at Broad Run, London Co., Va., 
June 22, 186s. 

My Dear Brother: 


We are still at the same point where I wrote my last 
letter. We are lying at Broad Run on the east side of 
it near the railroad. The First Division is lying on our 
right at the railroad. 

Yesterday there was heavy cannonading all day. We 
did not know what it meant. It seemed to be a heavy 
fight confined to one spot, and almost directly west. We 
had orders to pack up, and lay all day ready to move at a 
moment’s notice. About 5 o’clock P. M. orders came to 
pitch tents, accompanied with news that the affair had 
been a cavalry fight at the Gap, near Aldie, and that our 
cavalry had driven the enemy. Probably the thing was 
a reconnoissance by Lee. 

If Lee has as large an army as reported we will have a 
big fight soon. He is in a position to fight or retire at 
pleasure. I hardly think he meditates moving a large 
force into Pennsylvania. The Eleventh and Twelfth 
Corps are ahead of us, the former at Leesburg. The 
Fifth is at Goose Creek, also ahead of us. The rest of 
the army reaches to the Orange & Alexandria railroad. 
Hooker’s headquarters are at Centreville. 

The force around Washington in the fortifications is 
larger now than Hooker’s army. I presume, as usual, 
on the event of a fight the main body of our army will 
be held in reserve too far off to do anything. 

We get little news now. The papers are three days 
behind. I have read about the raid and the nomination 
of Judge. 

The Radicals calculate that the raid will stimulate the 
war spirit and strengthen their party. I think it will be 
just the reverse. Nothing shows more conclusively the 


46 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

incompetency of our men at Washington than the fact 
that such raids can be made, and that with one army 
larger than Lee’s in their command they allow him to do 
as he pleases. 

I am very nearly out of patience. I can see no sign 
of any change for the better. The President has 60,000 
men in the defences and a whole corps at Baltimore and 
scattered along the railroad (B. & V.). He could unite 
these forces and sweep Lee’s army out of existence, but 
he will not do it. He will still hug the main body close 
for personal protection and blame the Copperheads for 
the result, because they have denounced the odious fea¬ 
tures of the conscription law, while he has made no sin¬ 
cere attempt to enforce it in time to meet the exigencies 
of the service. 

Much love to mother and all friends. I am in good 
health. My clothes are nearly all worn out, and I look 
very seedy. I am in good spirits. My personal relations 
with General Rowley, an old acquaintance from Pitts¬ 
burg, who commands the brigade; Colonel Biddle, Major 
Biddle (One Hundred and Twenty-first), Colonel Dana, 
of the One Hundred and Forty-third, and other officers, 
are very agreeable. Colonel Dana is quite an accom¬ 
plished gentleman, and a Democrat. The Biddles are 
both good men. Colonel Allen is home on sick leave. 
Dana is in Colonel Stone’s brigade, the Second. Stone 
is a humbug. 


Middletown, Md., 
July 8, i86j. 

My Dear Brother: 

Arrived here at 10 A. M. this morning. Came yes¬ 
terday from Emmettsburg to the foot of Kittochin Moun¬ 
tain on this side about four miles from here. It was a 
weary march twenty-five miles. Have not time to write 
much. First Corps in the advance; we are now en¬ 
camped one mile southwest of town. The papers say 
that Lee’s retreat is cut off. I do not believe it. Things 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont, 47 

do not look so, at any rate. I hear rumors that Lee has 
crossed near Williamsport with his entire force; and the 
appearance of the army and our movements indicate that 
such is the fact. Still I may be mistaken. I am in good 
health. It rained all this morning, and I am wet to the 
skin, but all right. 


Camp near Boonsboro, Md., 
, Thursday, July p, i86j. 

My Dear Brother: 

You know all about the battle of Gettysburg. I need 
not repeat what I have written, nor what you have read 
in the papers. 

On Monday morning the army was put in motion. I 
presume it was a day too late, but that is not so clear. 
The greatest generals in the world’s estimation are the 
men who go for entire victory or complete defeat. Na¬ 
poleon was one of them, and he closed his career at St. 
Helena, and suffered the worst rout that ever befel an 
army. We cannot afford such risks and our successes 
are correspondingly less decisive. 

Our march on Monday morning lay over a part of the 
battlefield on the left for the distance of a mile or more. 
The ground was still marked with newly made graves, 
with the bloated and disgusting bodies of horses with 
their mouths open and eye-balls protruding. Many hu¬ 
man bodies were still unburied and the faces were black 
and the teeth grinning horribly. The trees were shat¬ 
tered by shot and shell. Wheat fields were trodden 
down. War had done its work; and the air was terribly 
offensive with the odor of thousands of rotting bodies. 
It was a relief to reach the outside of the terrible scene, 
to come again among beautiful farms, and through fields 
of ripe grain, and at last to reach Emmettsburg, where I 
enjoyed a good supper with a gentleman named McBride, 


48 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

a Catholic, who treated me with great kindness. I sat 
down with him and his family with feelings of no com¬ 
mon pleasure. 

At Emmettsburg I procured several things which I 
needed much, including the stationery which I am now 
using. Our camp was near the village on the north side. 
We remained there until Tuesday morning. Early on 
Tuesday we started on the road to Erederick City, but 
turned to the right and crossed the mountain by way of a 
little old collection of log houses called Hamburg. The 
road was very narrow and steep. The scenery, of course, 
was wild enough. We marched about twenty-five miles 
that day, and encamped at the foot of the mountain (Kit- 
tochin) on this side four miles northeast of Middletown. 
A heavy rain came on just after we encamped. I slept in 
a hay-mow after getting a good supper at a farm house. 
It rained nearly all night. 

Early on Wednesday morning we started again and 
marched to Middletown through a drenching rain. Last 
October our regiment marched through the same town 
with new clothes, new colors, and a fine band playing 
national airs. Then we had nine hundred men. Now 
we have less than a hundred. Colonel, Major, Adjutant, 
all gone. Then the people were waving flags and our 
men were cheering. Now the poor fellows left are too 
tired to raise more than a faint hurrah, and are tramp¬ 
ing through the mud wet to the skin. “There is the 
house. Colonel, where they gave us apples.” So they 
did eight months ago. A pretty girl distributed them. 
The pretty girl is at the window again, looking sadly at 
the jaded troops, and does not recognize the regiment, 
does not hear music, sees nothing but dirty, weary forms 
carrying two tattered flags, and going on, still going on 
to the end of the great journey. 

We encamped a mile this side of Middletown. Orders 
were to pitch tents and stay all night. Our corps since 
leaving Gettysburg has been in the advance. I went back 
from camp to Middletown and got something to eat. 
The town was very lively. The rain had ceased. The 
Eleventh Corps was passing through. They are great 
on music, but poor on fighting. The truth must be told 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 49 

of that confounded corps. It is not worth a sixpence. 
One or two brigades in it are honorable exceptions. Had 
the Kleventh Corps done anything on the first we would 
have been as successful that day as on the second and 
third. 

I took a room at a hotel and wrote a letter or two. I 
remained in town all afternoon, and troops were passing 
all the time. About sundown I started out to camp and 
took the wrong road. By this mistake I came upon the 
Pennsylvania Reserves and had a pleasant conversation 
with Major Knox and Colonel Fisher. I had a bottle 
of wine with me to contribute to the gaieties. Such hours 
of sunshine only come at long intervals in army life. 

My pleasant chat was interrupted by the intelligence 
that the First Corps had suddenly moved. So I started 
to overtake the regiment. When I got on the right road 
it was twilight. My way lay up the mountain gap. Reno 
was killed on that mountain. The view of the valley 
is lovely at any time as you ascend at that point. The 
music of twenty bands was floating off in the evening 
air, and I listened to it till it was drowned in the sound 
of swollen mountain streams. The camp fires of fifty 
thousand troops over the valley looked like the gas lights 
of a large city. My ride was a long and weary one. It 
was II o'clock when I reached the point where our 
corps, which was drawn up in line of battle, lay near the 
road, but the regiment lay in a spot which is not very 
easy to reach in daylight and my horse was nearly done 
up. So I got a place to pasture him, and a farmer's wife 
gave me a pillow on the floor, and I slept comfortably 
till morning. It was told us last night that our cavalry 
and the enemy's had been fighting all day near Boons- 
boro, that Lee's army could not cross for want of bridges, 
and that another general battle was coming off soon. 
The cavalry fight was truth, but I think it was only Lee’s 
rear guard. 

I rose at daylight and came up to the regiment. It is 
lying on the side of the mountain in the woods. Soon 
after breakfast and as the fog cleared up there was rapid 
firing of musketry down at the foot of the mountain and 
near us, but we could see no enemy. Our men sat very 


4 


50 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

coolly looking down, like birds on a perch, to ascertain 
the cause. A band was playing down there and teams 
were on the road, but still the firing continued, and we 
concluded that it was merely the advance of our line of 
skirmishers from the Eleventh Corps, or the cavalry on 
our left. I guess this opinion was correct. It is now 
about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Some troops have 
come down the Boonsboro pike, and taken position be¬ 
low us in the valley. The skirmish firing ceased before 
noon. I have not heard a cannon to-day. 

My opinion is that Lee has crossed. I believe he had 
at least one solid bridge at or near Williamsport which 
was never destroyed, but I presume the newspaper re¬ 
ports give a different idea. (I have just heard a cannon 
shot this minute. It is toward Williamsport, and at least 
six miles off.) 

I think there will be no general engagement on this 
side of the river, but I am not infallible. I did not ex¬ 
pect a great battle at Gettysburg. Still that was because 
I did not fully understand the topography of the coun¬ 
try, and I thought Gettysburg was more distant than it 
is from the Potomac. You ought to visit the Gettys¬ 
burg field; if you go to the Rebel side you will think 
their position was the better one; if you go to our side 
you will think ours is preferable. It was a very fair 
fight, and we were successful. The victory was a great 
one. I know it will not satisfy everybody, but what 
would such men say of Solferino, Majenta or Sebastopol. 

We were beaten at Fredericksburg in December. No¬ 
body has been able to say that it was not a Rebel victory, 
and yet we did not lose a cannon or withdraw a single 
battery twenty feet on Saturday, December 12. We lay 
in the same position from Saturday evening till Monday 
evening, and then withdrew without losing a gun, and 
yet we acknowledge that Lee is a general of some ability. 

At Chancellorsville the line of our army was not 
changed after Saturday night. We did not recross the 
river until Tuesday morning, and yet it was a Rebel vic¬ 
tory and Lee is not denounced. Why cannot we do our 
own generals the same justice? Bagging an army is pop- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 51 

ular among" men who know nothing about war, and care 
little about participating in its verities. 

I am in good health. I have a vague hope that the 
trials and labors of our regiment are nearly over. We 
have less than a hundred men left. W^e lost over two- 
thirds of the force in action. A list of the killed, wounded 
and missing is in the Inquirer. I furnished it, but the 
names are badly printed. 

Charley Connely is well. He is a fine, manly fellow, 
and well liked by his officers. Love to all friends. 

Tell mother I hope we are nearly through and that I 
shall see her again. 


Camp near Hagerstown, Md., 
July 10, 186^. 

My Dear Brother: 

I wrote you a long letter yesterday, and left it at 
Boonsboro to-day as we came through. Probably this one 
will reach you first. We were encamped last night near the 
foot of South Mountain, above Boonsboro. This morn¬ 
ing early we heard cannon firing toward Hagerstown, 
and about the same time our corps took up the line of 
march in this direction. My horse is pretty nearly done 
out. The boys made his back sore, and he is in need of 
shoeing. I had to walk to-day nearly all the way. A 
servant (colored) took my other horse at Gettysburg to 
ride back for feed to the wagon train, and sold the horse. 
At any rate, he was seen walking, and, when asked what 
he had done with the horse, said he had left him with 
me. To add to my inconvenience a mule which I use to 
carry a tent, fly and eatables, got a sore back, and to-day 
it and the boy in charge of it have failed to keep up 
with the troops. I presume I shall never see boy, nor 
mule, nor fly, nor eatables. 

This is a burning hot afternoon. The firing which was 
quite brisk nearly all day in front has ceased. Our army 
is very strong, and if we have a general engagement I 


52 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

feel quite confident about the result, but I do not think 
there will be a general battle. I believe Lee is crossing 
at Williamsport. 


Berlin, Md., 
Saturday, July i8, i86j^ 

My Dear Brother: 

On Thursday at Burkettsville my horse fell on me and 
sprained my ankle. The injury is not very severe nor 
dangerous. My right knee is also bruised some. The 
pain, however, was so intense that I could not ride in an 
ambulance, and I made an application to be sent to the 
general hospital. I am now under orders to report to the 
Medical Director at Georgetown, D. C. If my leg is not 
entirely well before a week I will probably get a leave 
of absence. 

I have to wait here a few hours for a train of cars. I 
am sitting in the telegraph office, and I cannot employ 
the time better than by summing up the events of the 
week. 

I believe I wrote to you from a camp near Boonsboro 
on Saturday or Sunday. Well, we did not stay there 
long. Sunday forenoon was lovely. It was quiet every¬ 
where. Even the army seemed to be reposing, and the 
harvest fields were lying untouched, but our rest was 
very short. A thunderstorm was coming up. We had 
orders to move, and soon started toward Funkstown. 
There was some discussion whether the distant thunder 
was artillery, but a heavy rain soon settled the question. 
I got completely wet to the skin. Even my boots were 
full of water. We crossed Antietam creek and marched 
down to the left about a mile. There we were formed 
in line of battle, and to our surprise found ourselves un¬ 
der the occasional fire of the enemy’s sharpshooters and 
skirmishers. The firing soon became very brisk and 
finally our men drove the enemy’s skirmishers and pickets 
back about half a mile. We then perceived pur real po- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 53 

sition. We were in the front line and the enemy’s line 
of entrenchments was plainly seen about a mile distant 
along the edge of the woods. 

The skirmishing continued all evening. W^e expected 
a battle soon. I lay down without a tent in the rain on a 
sheaf of wheat. It was a damp bed, but I slept soundly 
till I or 2 o’clock. Then I got up and rekindled a dying 
fire and slept beside it till daylight. 

Our men immediately after forming their line com¬ 
menced throwing up a rude breastwork of rails and earth. 
Both armies now use the spade. The Rebel entrench¬ 
ments at Gettysburg are very strong. One man behind 
such defences is as good as two outside. Some of our 
commanders are all for high chivalry. At Gettysburg, 
instead of taking advantage of a fence which happened 
to be just in the right place, we got an order to charge 
bayonet against a double line of infantry twice as strong 
as our own. Some very brave and high-toned officers 
lack discretion. 

On Monday morning we were secure from an attack 
and ready to make one. The day was cool and cloudy. 
Hour after hour passed on, however, and still nothing 
was done, but a little skirmishing. We listened for the 
opening of artillery on the right or left, but not a gun 
was heard. Bye and bye came a report that Senator 
Somebody and the Vice President were in the neighbor¬ 
hood. Along with it came the intellieence that Lee had 
been strongly re-inforced, that Beauregard had joined 
him with 40,000 men. I am half inclined to believe that 
this unfounded rumor came from a high source, and that 
the loss of the golden opportunity will yet be traced to 
the common origin of blunders. 

Looking back we can see that that one day’s delay 
was an error, but it was by no means palpable at the 
time. Lee’s army was entrenched. It occupied a strong, 
natural position, the dividing ridge between the Potomac 
and Antietam creek. The streams run nearly parallel. 
It is by no means certain that we would have carried 
the line at the first assault. Another supposition was, 
that Lee had no means of crossing, and was compelled 
to make a desperate resistance. If so the work before 


54 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

us was no child’s play, and delay was by no means dan¬ 
gerous or impolitic. Although I would much prefer see¬ 
ing McClellan in command of this army, I thing it would 
be unjust to set General Meade’s error down as a blunder. 
He is a brave man, and did a great work at Gettysburg. 
For that alone he deserves the gratitude of the people for 
all time. 

On Monday afternoon the battery of the enemy directly 
in front of us fired three or four shells. We thought 
the ball had opened in earnest. Our batteries, however, 
did not reply, and evening came on without anything 
being accomplished. I slept under a shelter tent that 
night very comfortably. We had some expectation that 
the fight would commence early, but on awaking the first 
rumor I heard was that the enemy had gone. Presently 
a prisoner was brought in. He had not awakened in 
time, and missed the move. After a few minutes a young 
farmer came past, and said he had been cooped inside 
of the Rebel lines for several days, but that they sloped 
during the night. He looked like an uncaged bird. He 
was making tracks for a neighbor’s house to carry the 
good news—good news to people who in the event of a 
fight would have participated in its terrors and suffering. 

On Tuesday before noon we started toward Williams¬ 
port. We soon crossed the Rebel entrenchments. The 
position was admirably selected and well improved. As 
we glanced at the works in passing some of us could not 
help a quiet self-congratulation that we had been spared 
the trouble of an assault. 

We encamped on Tuesday evening near Williamsport. 
It rained again. I rode into town and saw where a part 
of the Rebels had crossed. 

Wednesday was a bright and warm day. We started 
early and marched more than twenty miles. I got a good 
dinner at a farm house, taking pot luck with half a dozen 
men who were harvesting. We crossed Antietam creek 
a short distance above the old battlefield, passed through 
Keidysville and Rohersville, and encamped for the night 
about a mile from the place where I passed a miserable 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 55 

night last fall. The day’s march was severe on the men; 
several died of sunstroke. 

Early on Thursday we resumed our march toward this 
place. Passing through Burkettsville my horse, a bor¬ 
rowed one, became unruly. He is a vicious brute. He 
finally reared and fell backward with my right leg under 
him. I held his head down until I got my foot free, and 
then let him get up. I found that my leg was somewhat 
bruised and my ankle sprained. A farmer allowed me 
to occupy a room in his house until an ambulance came 
up. I then enjoyed my first ride in one of those delight¬ 
ful vehicles. It is comparable to nothing but a trip over 
Sandy Hill in the Butler hack. 

I owe my misfortune to a faithless nigger. It was my 
luck to have in my employ at Gettysburg an African with 
a hangdog look. I gave him my brown horse to go back 
to the wagon train. When he reached the train the horse 
was not with him. On being interrogated by the other 
boys he said that he left the horse with me. He also 
showed a considerable sum of money to one of them. 
After this act of embezzlement he sloped toward Balti¬ 
more. I may meet him yet. At times in my dreams I 
imagine myself giving up my commission and devoting 
myself to the task of bringing the fellow to justice. The 
loss of my horse compelled me to borrow another, for I 
had to use one to carry blankets and feed. The animal 
which I got was a vicious brute and full of tricks. 

We encamped on Thursday evening about three miles 
from Berlin. It rained all night. I lay in the tent all 
day yesterday. It was a wet, dreary day. My order to 
report to Georgetown arrived in the evening, and I came 
over to this place in an ambulance. We were delayed 
several hours by wagons. 

This morning our whole corps passed and crossed the 
river on the pontoon bridge at the same place we crossed 
last fall. 

I saw Hoover Shannon, George Plumer, George Snow¬ 
den, Captain Gray, Charley Connely and everybody else 
as they passed along the street an hour ago. They were 
all well. They all had a kind word to say to me, and 
generally congratulated me on my accident. It is a sad 


56 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

fact that the privations and hardships of army life are so 
severe that sickness or the loss of a limb is regarded as 
a blessing rather than a calamity. I am free to confess 
that the prospect of a week’s repose, of getting clean 
clothes, and of seeing friends again more than compen¬ 
sates for the pain I have suffered and am likely to suffer 
from a'sprained ankle. 

I believe the war is nearly over. I doubt much whether 
there will be any battle in Virginia soon, if at all. 


Camp at Rappahannock Stationj 
Friday, Sept. 4, 186J. 

My Dear Brother: 

I received a very interesting letter from you yester¬ 
day. It enclosed a puff in the ‘‘Monitor.” I am sorry 
the writer reflected on the editor of the “Register,” who 
has always done me full justice, and is, I believe, per¬ 
sonally friendly to me. Beside, the puff itself is in bad 
taste, very much overdone and calculated to do a man 
more harm than good. But I do not care much for such 
•things. If I can get back into civil life again with a 
sound constitution and without positive disgrace, I shall 
be contented. I am almost indifferent to newspaper blame 
or approbation, because I helped to edit one a number 
of years, and know how little there is of true value in 
anything they say. There used to be a set of men about 
Pittsburg who had to be puffed about once a month. 
The thing was essential to their happiness. They ex¬ 
pected it regularly. If you omitted any opportunity of 
bringing their names forward they would call and com¬ 
plain about it. Some of them were so considerate as to 
write their own notes. They, without an exception, I 
believe, all attained pretty high political positions. Some 
are dead and some hold their places still. It would amuse 
you to take up an old file of newspapers and read the 
different notices of distinguished men, provided the edi- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 57 

tor for the time could sit beside you and explain the 
circumstances under which they were written. 

We have not moved since I wrote last. We haye an 
occasional rumor of Rebel demonstrations, and then we 
get orders to be ready to fall in and march on short 
notice, but everything goes on as if we were here for an 
indefinite period. They dig wells everywhere by blast¬ 
ing the rock. The occasional explosions sound like ar¬ 
tillery, and sometimes occasion reports of imaginary 
movements. 

We get mails regularly, and every afternoon we re¬ 
ceive the morning papers of that day. The cars come 
to Bealton station, four miles back, but the locomotive 
runs up to this point two or three times a day to get 
water. When it comes in it whistles loud enough to 
make the Rebels believe that we are getting recruits by the 
thousand. 

Our regiment is filling up slowly with arrivals from 
convalescent camp. Several men wounded at Gettysburg 
have returned. One sergeant, who was shot in the 
mouth, has the appearance of a man with a hare lip. 
We have now about one hundred and forty men present 
for duty. We have not yet received any drafted men. 

Our men are doing picket duty across the river. We 
send out about one-half of those present every two days. 
They remain out until relieved, forty-eight hours. The 
number left in camp is too small for battalion drill, and 
accordingly we do nothing but smoke and read news¬ 
papers when they come. 

The men have arbors built over their shelter tents. 
The camps are rather neat. Those of the Pennsylvania 
Reserves are near us and in sight. Colonel Knox called 
on Wednesday. He is in good health and spirits. 

Some nervous anxiety seems to be felt just now about 
Lee’s movements. It is undoubtedly true that this army 
has been weakened since we left Williamsport. If Lee 
has been strengthened and should assume the offensive 
we will have to fall back. Should this occur soon it will 
cast a damper over the whole country. It would be 


58 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

a much wiser policy to withdraw the army before an 
attack is actually made. 

My command is so small now that it seems almost 
ridiculous to call it a regiment, but it will become larger 
if we do not get into another fight. One more battle 
would nearly wipe it out of existence. 

I have been recommended for promotion to the office 
of Colonel. The papers went up to Governor Curtin 
two weeks ago, but he has not seen proper to act on 
them. If I cannot be promoted I shall resign. I will 
not submit to injustice. 

I cannot give up my political opinions to gain a posi¬ 
tion to which I am entitled in the regular order of military 
promotion, and I presume Governor Curtin would not 
think of requiring such terms. But more than that I 
cannot afiford to write to him and importune him for 
this thing as a personal favor. I believe I have a right 
to it, and if he and others cannot see the matter in that 
light I can afford to resign. Our Adjutant was a nephew 
of the Governor. When he fell at Gettysburg mortally 
wounded, I helped him to rise, and with the aid of one 
of the men carried him back to the seminary, where he 
died. Had I not done so he would have perished on the 
field, for all our troops had fallen back and he and I 
were several paces in the rear. Under the circumstances, 
I should not like to solicit my promotion as a favor, nor 
have any of my friends take any steps to procure it. But 
there is no use in saying anything about this matter now. 
I presume the commission will come in due time. If it 
does not I can resign. 

The weather has become very cool and pleasant. We 
require blankets at night. We get soft'bread and fresh 
beef now all the time. The commissary supplies are our 
chief dependence. We can buy nothing in the country. 
It is very thinly settled in this locality, and the few people 
who live here are very poor. Sutlers bring us a few 
luxuries at fearful prices. On the whole we are not suf¬ 
fering. 

The men have had a rough time of it. Those of my 
regiment have all used more clothing than their allow¬ 
ance. This had been in consequence of the hard marches. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 59 

They are all in debt. Troops that lay around Washing¬ 
ton can save money on their clothing accounts. So the 
thing works. The harder the service the less the pay. 


Camp near Raccoon Ford, Va., 
Sept. 28, 186^. 

My Dear Brother: 

I forgot the date of my last letter to you, but I believe 
it was written at camp near Culpeper, C. H. Well, we 
left it on Thursday last and marched down through the 
pine woods to a point about two miles from Mitchell’s 
Ford. There we remained until yesterday (Sunday) 
afternoon. Our stay at that place was only marked by 
the execution of a deserter. It was a sad sight. They 
shot five a week ago in the Fifth Corps, but there is 
something far more impressive in the fate of a single 
man than in the destruction of a hundred. Whatley’s 
rhetoric contains a strong chapter based on this idea. 
He shows the true philosophy of the excitement of sen¬ 
sibilities. 

The deserter who suffered behaved very courageously. 
He marched steadily around the field, keeping step to the 
mournful music of the band. Then his spiritual adviser 
prayed with him a long time, and after that he stood up 
firmly to be shot, and fell over his coffin without a strug¬ 
gle. One bullet passed through his head and another 
through his heart. The troops had to pass the body 
marching as if in review in column of companies. Then 
the bands struck up ^‘The Red, White and Blue,” and 
the ceremony was over. 

On the morning that we left Culpeper encampment. 
General Kenley proved to be in liquor. The corps com¬ 
mander put him under arrest. General Rowley is also 
under arrest for the same offence. The accident of these 
two Brigadiers being suspected of taking too much 
whisky places Colonel Chapman Biddle in command of 
the Third Division, and gives me the command of our 
brigade. I find one advantage in the position, that I 


6 o Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

have always good quarters. To-night, for instance, I 
have a wall tent to myself, a snug bed, and a fine blazing 
fire out in front. It needs all these luxuries to make the 
place cheerful. We are in a dismal spot. The woods are 
partly pine and partly oak, and very dense. Our en¬ 
campment is on a small farm or clearing of some forty 
acres in the middle of what the owner supposed to be 
an impenetrable wilderness. Poor man. His fences are 
all gone, and his few cows and pigs are sharing the same 
fate. However, it may be all for the best. He will be 
compelled to leave this region, and he will learn what he 
would not otherwise have discovered—that there is a 
better country out west. 

We are not far from the Rapidan, perhaps a mile or 
two. The enemy has fortified the opposite bank. I be¬ 
lieve we are in reach of his guns, but there is no firing 
now, and there has been none for several days. It is not 
easy to say what we are going to do. It is reported 
that one corps of our army has gone back. If so I think 
we are not going to cross the Rapidan. It seems to me 
that if we had been going over at all the crossing would 
have been made a week ago. 

I have given my promotion up. I could not be mus¬ 
tered in without more men, and it seems we are not going 
to get any. 

I perceive by the papers that you are in a political war 
almost as annoying as a regular military campaign. There 
is no such thing as peace any place this side of heaven, 
and we read that there was once war there, too. It may 
be my luck to have it break out again if I should ever 
get there. I am tired of the thing, so is everybody else. 
A victory only prolongs the strife, for our rulers do not 
know how to use an advantage when they have it. They 
will not treat when they are successful, and when they 
meet reverses they cannot. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 6i 

Camp, near Raccoon Ford, 
Sunday, Oct. 4, 1863. 

My Dear Brother : 

Gen. Kenley was released from arrest yesterday, and 
returned to his command of the 3rd division. Biddle 
returned to the brigade, and I abdicated in his favor. I 
enjoyed the command about a week. Our brigade is a 
very interesting feature of the army. It numbers about 
three hundred and fifty men for duty. Col. Dana com¬ 
manding the 143rd, has received a full complement of 
conscripts, and in consequence his regiment is about three 
times as large as our brigade. I do not understand why 
neither the 121st nor the 142nd received any drafted men. 
but I am not very anxious about getting them. They 
would give me a great deal of trouble, and on the whole 
it is perhaps as well to be without them. Curtin pays 
no attention to my recommendations for the promotion 
of line officers. I presume he is aware that I am not 
politically in his favor. 

We are lying about a mile and a half from Raccoon 
Ford on the Culpeper Court House road. On Thursday 
I was Corps officer of the picket, and rode the line along 
the river. It is nearly seven miles long and connects 
on the right with the pickets of the 2nd corps. The 
country along the river is beautiful. 

I see no signs of an immediate forward movement. The 
withdrawal of the nth and 12th corps would look like 
abandonment of the onward movement. Our eight day 
ration order has been countermanded, and we now 
have only three days’ rations on hand. On Friday it 
rained very hard all day and all night. My tent was filled 
with water. The ground here is level and swampy. 
I presume the roads are now in such a condition that mov¬ 
ing would be difficult even if it had been determined on, 
but everything indicates an abandonment of the March 
to Richmond. 

Half a dozen cannon shots have just been fired at the 
Ford. We do not know the cause yet. 10 o’clock A. M. 


62 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Camp on Culpeper C. H. Road, 
near Raccoon Ford, 

Oct. 6, 1863. 

My Dear Brother: 

Just as I was closing a letter to you on Sunday we 
heard several cannon shots down at the river. We had in¬ 
stantly orders to be under arms, and I closed my letter 
and put it in the mail. In about half an hour we had 
an explanation of the cause of the firing. A small party 
with a wagon were foraging near the river, and the 
Rebels opened on them, firing half a dozen shells with¬ 
out doing any damage. There the matter ended. We 
soon received orders, however, to change our camp for 
other reasons. Some guerillas had been prowling around 
the artillery batteries and had captured one man. Our 
little brigade was accordingly moved to a point on the 
Culpeper road about half a mile from our last camp, and 
farther from the river, where we are now lying. While 
we were in the act of moving Colonel Knox called, and 
he remained with me during the whole of Sunday after¬ 
noon. Coop. Cochran was with him. 

We now have a very pleasant camp, with a pretty 
good view of surrounding country, and of the Blue Ridge 
range in the distance. We have good water and plenty 
of rails for fuel. The nights are cold. Very soon stoves 
or fire-places will be a necessity. It is coming near the 
season when military movements in this locality will be 
attended with great difficulty. I shall not be surprised 
if our army is withdrawn beyond the Rappahannock, or 
even to the defences at Washington. The intention un¬ 
doubtedly was to proceed toward Richmond by this route, 
but two weeks ago a change was perceptible. The day 
on which we left Culpeper C. H. I saw a general order 
at army headquarters for all teams to be held in readi¬ 
ness to move to the rear on short notice. Knox says it 
had been decided then at Washington to make a retro¬ 
grade movement, but the order was changed, and only 
two corps, the Eleventh and Twelfth, were taken away 
to reinforce Rosecrantz. The withdrawal of these two 
corps has reduced the army so much that I believe no on¬ 
ward movement is contemplated just now, and it will 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 63 

very soon be too late to attempt it. Some pretty shrewd 
observers say that we are all going to fall back, and that 
the movement is only delayed in consequence of the ap¬ 
proaching election. If the army were to retreat now it 
would very probably injure the Republican cause. 

I have very little hope of Woodward’s election, but I 
could almost pray for it. Something is wanted to re¬ 
buke the Radicals, or they will persist in an eternal war. 
I observe a good sign of returning common sense at 
Washington in the speech of the Postmaster General. 
But the trouble with our rulers is that they are never 
conservative at the right time. It requires a defeat to 
make them talk moderation. In the hour of success they 
become extravagant in their demands, and lose the favor¬ 
able opportunity for restoring peace. I wish I could have 
been at home to take the stump for Woodward, but 
neither my vote nor my exertions could change the re¬ 
sult. 

Captain William Hasson has resigned and been dis¬ 
charged honorably. I strained a point and recommended 
the acceptance of his resignation for the benefit of the 
service. His business was suffering in his absence, and 
he had apprehension of being utterly ruined, though he 
owns a very productive oil interest. There seemed to 
be no way to save him but to certify as I did. There is 
something very arbitrary and tyrannical in the position 
assumed at Washington, that an officer cannot resign, 
but that the President can dismiss one at pleasure. The 
true doctrine I think was laid down by Justice McLean, 
of the United States Supreme Court, that the right of 
resignation is an incident to every office, civil or mili¬ 
tary. The President undoubtedly can remove any mili¬ 
tary officer at pleasure. He exercises this right very 
often, but his power to do so implies the officer’s right 
to resign. 

George Snowden is now entitled to be Captain of 
Company I, and I shall send up a recommendation im¬ 
mediately, but I presume it will be treated with silent 
contempt like all my former recommendations. 

The weather is clear and nights very cold. The rail¬ 
road is about three or four miles off, and we are pretty 


64 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

well supplied. Captain Over, of the Tenth Reserves, 
and William Kennedy, Lieutenant in the Sixteenth Cav¬ 
alry, called to-day and took dinner with me. They were 
both in good health and spirits. The Sixteenth Cavalry 
is now lying back at Bealton station. These officers rep¬ 
resent that the opinion in favor of a backward movement 
is very general. 


Camp at Thoroughfare Gap, Va., 
Friday, Oct. 2^, i86j. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have had very poor conveniences for writing during 
the last two weeks. Even now I have nothing but a fly 
over me, and it is too cold to give you a long letter. The 
First Corps is at this point on the west side of the moun¬ 
tain. As you -will see by the map we are on the Manasses 
Gap railroad. A train of cars came up to-day. It was 
the first on this route for a long time. It took some 
sick men back toward Washington on its return. 

We have had a rough time of it in marching, expos¬ 
ure and hardships since leaving Raccoon Ford, but we 
have seen very little fighting. The suspense, however, 
was constant for two weeks. I will have to refer you 
to my letters to my wife for particulars. 

We now understand that the enemy has re-crossed the 
Rappahannock. I think the probabilities are that there 
will be no general engagement in this department. The 
weather will soon stop operations. 

We have been lying here three days. There are no 
signs of moving immediately. Of course, I cannot tell 
what will be done. Perhaps we may go to work to build 
bridges, and reconstruct the Gordonsville railroad, and 
try to re-occupy the ground voluntarily abandoned. I 
confess my inability to see through the stupendous plans 
of Hallock & Co. I hope I shall live to learn who was 
the mighty individual who has directed the movements of 
this army since McClellan was removed. 

Rosencrantz has fallen, too. It seems he was a ter¬ 
rible man. He ate opium, drank whisky, was drunk at 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 65 

Chattanooga during the great battle, is suspected of dis¬ 
loyalty, etc. etc. It is strange that all this has been dis¬ 
covered since the election. 

I am still in good health, but somewhat tired and dis¬ 
gusted. When we get settled I shall apply for a short 
leave of absence, but some new scheme may put us in 
motion for a winter campaign. 


Camp at Briston Station, Va., 
Thursday, Oct. 2Q, i 86 j. 

My Dear Brother: 

I believe my last letter to you was written at Thorough¬ 
fare Gap. Our corps left that point on Saturday last, 
and we had a cold and wet march to this place, which we 
reached after dark. Briston station, as you know, is on 
the Orange & Alexandria railroad, about three miles 
southwest of Manasses Junction. We seem to be em¬ 
ployed in guarding the railroad. The main body of the 
army is in front at Warrenton, Warrenton Junction and 
other points. The enemy is still reported as having some 
force on this side of the Rappahannock. We have a 
strong force of engineers and laborers repairing the road 
which was completely destroyed beyond this point. What 
we will do when the work is finished is hard to tell, for 
it is certain we accomplished nothing when we had it in 
perfect working order. I presume it is deemed neces¬ 
sary to keep up a show of activity, and to menace the 
enemy in this direction, but the probability of reaching 
Richmond or even Gordonsville by this route at this 
season is one of a very remote order. 

The extreme sensitiveness of our people at Washing¬ 
ton concerning the safety of the capitol has been the 
source of innumerable blunders. They allow it to frus¬ 
trate every plan. Lee understands them perfectly, and 
he only finds it necessary now to make a feint of mov¬ 
ing on Washington to put our whole army on the right 
about at double quick. 

It is not very easy to see the sagacity or military strat¬ 
egy of our recent retreat. Nor is our present advance a 


5 


66 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

manifest masterstroke. The withdrawal of McClellan’s 
army from Richmond instead of re-inforcing it was a 
still more palpable blunder. And yet it is strange that, 
in spite of errors innumerable, we gain a little gradually. 
Still one gets sick at heart at the prospect of an intermin¬ 
able war. Probably the effect of all these mistakes in 
policy will be to make the result finally depend on the re¬ 
spective resources and powers of endurance of the two 
parties. I am not quite sure that, laying foreign inter¬ 
ference out of the question, our true policy would not be 
to hold our positions in the different states, maintain the 
blockade and never risk a battle without almost a cer¬ 
tainty of success. Our people at the North are very 
tired of the war. The army is very tired, and I presume 
the southern people and army are suffering far more 
than ours. 

I am only writing this twaddle because I have noth¬ 
ing else. 

We are lying in a very pleasant spot where the railroad 
crosses Broad run. I have got a flue in my tent and am 
quite comfortable. Our company has received soft bread, 
beans and molasses, and we are contemplating a fine 
dinner. We have lived on crackers and poor beef or 
ham for three weeks. 

I am pretty well tired of the service. My regiment 
numbers i6o for duty. I cannot be promoted. It seems 
absurd in every point of view to be signing papers, mak¬ 
ing requisitions, having battalion drills, and going 
through the motions in general with little more than a 
company. Colonel Biddle commands the First Brigade, 
including our regiment and his own. The brigade num¬ 
bers a little over three hundred men for duty. He is 
heartily disgusted with the service, and has tendered his 
resignation. He is a very correct man, and a fine offi¬ 
cer. He attends particularly to the most minute duty. 
He is always at his post and on hand for business. It is 
painful to see such a man under the command of one 
every way his inferior, a monkey-faced individual, who 
is drunk two-thirds of the time, and incompetent when 
he is sober. 

General Rowley has procured a nice berth. All goes 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 67 

by political and personal favoritism. Rowley has been 
ordeied to Portland, Maine. He was under arrest, but 
that made no difference. He is to superintend the draft. 

A regular Brigadier General is not often seen in the 
army. Brigades are commanded by Colonels. There 
are, you know, a great many Brigadiers, but they were 
nearly all appointed from improper influences, and the 
same influences are equally potent to secure them com¬ 
fortable quarters at a distance from the held. 

The weather is getting cold and reminds one of the 
severities of camp life and marches that we suffered a 
year ago. Even now our movements are attended with 
many hardships. The poor men have a hard time of it. 


Camp near Catletfs Station, Va. 

Nov. 21, 1863. 

My Dear Brother : 

I presume by this time you have arrived at home. I 
was somewhat disappointed that you did not visit the 
army. You could have enjoyed comfortable quarters 
and good fare in the same neighborhood where your 
regiment lay in the spring of 1862. Your friend. Dr. Ed¬ 
monds, gave us,—i. e., our field and staff,—a good din¬ 
ner the other day. His father-in-law. Stone, talks like 
a good Union man, and seems to enjoy some special 
privileges. For instance, yesterday he got a pass to visit 
Alexandria and buy some necessaries for his family. 

A few days since we received orders to be ready to 
march on short notice, but present indications are that 
our division will be left here to guard the railroad. Sev¬ 
eral orders which have been received by the rest of the 
army in relation to baggage foreshadowing warm work 
in front, and a rapid advance have not been extended to 
us. I understand that the troops have been required to 
send back their knapsacks. I can hardly believe it. But 
one thing is certain, that no matter how light the trains 
may be there will be some difficulty in advancing. It has 
rained steadily all day with no sign of abatement. 


68 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

The country along the Rapidian is very swampy, and I 
do not see how artillery is to be moved in that region at 
this season. Still it is clear that Gen. Meade is going to 
try something. It is probable that the army is on the 
move already. 

The news from Tennessee is rather discouraging. It 
is not easy after one has seen something of the service 
to perceive the advantage of retrograde movements un¬ 
less they are the result of compulsion. A retreat is very 
demoralizing on the men and dispiriting to the country. 

We get the papers here regularly and enjoy many of 
the luxuries and comforts of civil life, but we have no 
danger of forgetting that we are in military service. 
Every day the Guerillas appear in our vicinity in small 
parties and pick up any unfortunate fellow who may be 
wandering off by himself. We have not yet lost any men. 
This regiment has the responsibility of guarding about 
four miles of road and taking care of itself at the same 
time. As we have only two hundred men and but 176 
armed, the labor is more than we can do properly. I 
only hope that nothing like a raid will be made on us, for 
if it should be, our force will not be adequate to prevent 
depredations. I have thrown up rifle pits all around our 
camp and converted the old stable and other buildings 
into block houses, but I doubt if my engineering would 
receive much praise at the hands of military men. It is 
more probably of the kind called civil. 

Major Kennedy and his brother spent the night here 
not long since and gave me some of the Franklin news. 
According to all reports the little village is improving at 
a rapid rate. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 69 


My Dear Brother : 


Camp near Catlett's Station, Va. 
Dec. 3, 1863, Thursday. 


After a week of suspense occasioned by the peculiar 
movements in front we learn this morning that the 
army is falling back and that the head quarters of Gen. 
Meade are at Brandy station, five miles beyond the Rap¬ 
pahannock. As there has been no cannonading heard for 
two days, I presume the retrograde movement was a 
result of a conviction that the Confederate works at 
Orange Court House and the position of the army at 
that point were too strong to be taken without a ruinous 
sacrifice. At any rate our advance stopped on Monday, 
and now we have the retreat announced as a certainty. 
From the sound of the firing on Friday, Saturday and 
Sunday, I supposed there was a severe battle, but it turns 
out that the loss on both sides was very small. I had 
very little hope that the movement would be a success. 
Meade’s army is not very large, and the roads on the 
Rapidan must be in a miserable condition, freezing at 
night and thawing by day. This disadvantage to the at¬ 
tacking party is almost insurmountable. If Meade draws 
ofif his forces without loss he will have accomplished a 
good purpose, for his movement has doubtless prevented 
the reinforcement of the armies of Bragg and Longstreet. 


We are still encamped near Edmond’s house, and my 
headquarters are in the house of Mr. Peters. I have 
been under roof more than three weeks. 


On Monday we lost one of our men. He had gone out 
without leave to get wood, and was chopping with his 
rifle near him. Another man, unarmed, was carrying 
the wood. The latter saw three men dressed in blue 
overcoats seize the man who was chopping. They took 
him about a mile and a half. A party was sent in pur¬ 
suit. They heard a shot fired, and upon going forward, 
found the dead body of our man in the pine woods. It 
was a cruel and cowardly murder. The poor fellow was 
a mere boy. The perpetrators of this outrage belonged 
to Moseby’s gang. 

I cannot be mustered in as Colonel, not having eight 


70 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

hundred and thirty men on my rolls. There is no prob¬ 
ability that I ever will have that number. I am in good 
health. I read the Spectator puff. 


Camp near Paoli Mills, Va, 
Tuesday, Dec. 8, 1863. 

My Dear Brother : 

We arrived at this point day before yesterday. Our 
camp is near Mountain Run, about five miles from Rap¬ 
pahannock station, and about three or four miles south¬ 
east from Brandy station. The distance to Kelly’s Ford 
is about the same. The remainder of our corps is in the 
same neighborhood. We were relieved by the 5th corps 
Saturday afternoon, and left Catlett’s station before sun¬ 
down. That evening we came to Licking Run, a few 
miles this side of Warrenton Junction. On Sunday fore¬ 
noon we finished our march, and we are now occupying 
a lot of cabins which were built by the Rebels for winter 
quarters. They are very snug and comfortable. We 
see no very great indications of a battle. I presume there 
will be none, unless Lee, when reinforced by Longstreet, 
should assume the offensive. Our army is all on the 
north side of Mountain Run. We have no news of the 
Rebels being in great force this side of the Rapidan. 

I saw Col. Knox at Catletts. He was expecting to 
leave for home soon. His resignation has been accept¬ 
ed. 

I am in good health, but feel a little depressed at the 
prospect of remaining all winter away down here with¬ 
out seeing home. The weather is clear and cold, but the 
mud will be terrible as soon as we have rain or snow. 

I have not been mustered in as Colonel, and I presume 
will not be. Capt. McClure, an old friend of mine from 
Carlisle, thought it of sufficient importance to send me a 
verbal message to the effect that my name had been men¬ 
tioned favorably in Gen. Doubleday’s report of the battle 
of Gettysburg. 

Col. Chapman Biddle has resigned. His papers went 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 71 

forward yesterday. I presume he has influence suffi¬ 
cient at Washington to secure his escape from the ser¬ 
vice. He is a good officer, and a brave man, but he is 
very anxious to leave. If the Colonel leaves I will prob¬ 
ably be in command of the Brigade, but there will be 
very little advantage in the position. 

I am glad to hear that Franklin is prospering. I hope 
I shall live to see it in its good days, and to meet my old 
friends again, but it is hard to see a clear place in the fu¬ 
ture. 

Give my love to mother. It seems a long time since I 
saw her. Perhaps I may get a leave of absence this 
winter for a few days and visit you, but I must wait until 
the army gets settled in winter quarters. 


Camp near Paoli Mills, Va. 

Dec. 19, 1863. 

My Dear Brother: 

I received yours of the 14th yesterday evening. Our 
mail arrangements are pretty good when one can get 
news from Franklin in four days. 

Your offer is a very kind one. I mean your proposal 
to work for my promotion, but I have not the most re¬ 
mote hope that you will be able to accomplish it. I have 
not yet been mustered in as Colonel, and cannot be under 
existing orders until I have eight hundred and thirty 
men in my regiment. Perhaps our ranks may be filled up 
with recruits in the spring, but unless the next draft 
proves more successful than the last one I will not be 
able to get enough men to bring my command up to the 
minimum, (830). So you see here is a pretty long step at 
the outset. Next we have in this division six colonels, 
who rank me. It is true, I am the senior officer in this 
brigade, and so have command of it, but there are only 
two regiments in it (121st and I42d), and it is so small 
that it will probably be consolidated with some other. 

There will probably be but few Brigadiers appointed 
and the selections must be made from a long list of ap- 


72 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

plicants. It is no sham modesty which makes me ack¬ 
nowledge that there will be many disappointed who de¬ 
serve the advancement and who will fill the position bet¬ 
ter than myself. To say nothing of our politics I think 
the foregoing considerations are sufficient to render my 
prospect of elevation very distant. I believe the most 
I can possibly expect is to be mustered in as Colonel. To 
accomplish that end it may be necessary to procure the 
repeal of an unjust act of congress (Act of March 3, 
1863), which virtually, stops all promotion in regiments 
that have been so unfortunate as to get into a fight. If 
I could be mustered to date back to my commission (July 
4, 1863) I would gain about two hundred dollars in pay. 
Just now the money would be acceptable. 

We are becoming quite reconciled to our new loca¬ 
tion. We hear rumors of another move backwards. The 
knowing ones say that we are to recross the Rappahan¬ 
nock on account of bad roads and difficulty of transport¬ 
ing supplies. The news is not particularly pleasant, for 
the men are all in pretty comfortable quarters here, and 
if we go back we may be put in some place almost des¬ 
titute of timber. 

I got a stove yesterday, and have it now in operation. 
The position of brigade commander enables me to have 
more comforts than I enjoyed last winter. Whether we 
are on a march or in camp, I can now have a wall tent 
for my own use, and the men are always very ready to 
do anything to oblige me. 

Col. Chapman Biddle’s resignation was accepted about 
a week ago, so that my position is secure as long as the 
brigade is organized as it is now, but we may be thrown 
into a connection with some other regiment with a live 
colonel in it, and then I can take up the lament of Wolsey. 

I forget what there was in my last letter to convey the 
impression that I was in low spirits. I presume I express¬ 
ed some dissatisfaction about my inability to be muster¬ 
ed, and I confess it is some what discouraging to reflect 
that I cannot have any promotion under existing orders 
and acts of congress. Perhaps, too, I may have complain¬ 
ed of our dismal locality, but these matters do not disturb 
me much nor give me any great annoyance. I am gen- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 73 

erally very cheerful. My health is always good, I have 
a good appetite, and our fare is not of the worst. I sleep 
as soundly as ever, except that I have become so accus¬ 
tomed to be wakened by orders, that I jump instinctively 
the moment an orderly knocks at the tent door. 

George Snowden, who is at home on a leave, will be 
able to tell you more than I can write about our condi¬ 
tion, and prospects, but he is not very talkative, and per¬ 
haps you will not see him very often. 

Leaves of absence are now granted on a regular system 
by general orders, but there is a provision in them that 
not more than one brigade commander shall be absent 
in a corps at the same time. I intend to apply for a leave 
as soon as I can see an opportunity. Should I succeed 
we can talk over everything. I find that I am entitled to 
a month’s pay from the state while recruiting, prior to the 
organization of the regiment. I want to make a regular 
application for it. I can do this if I go home on leave, or 
can prepare the necessary papers here. But it will be 
more readily accomplished at Harrisburg. 

We are on very light duty here. We furnish a daily 
detail of twenty men for picket. It is too muddy for 
drill, and the men have an easy time of it. The reserves 
who relieved us have more trouble than we had guarding 
the railroad. On the whole our present condition is about 
as good as army life can be made in Virginia waste with 
mud knee deep. 


Butler, Pa. 

Jan. 7, 1864, Thursday. 

My Dear Brother : 

I think I will not be able to visit you, and I am very 
sorry for it. I might leave to-morrow at noon and reach 
Franklin the next (Saturday) morning, but then I would 
have to go right on without being able to say more than 
“how are you?” and “good bye!” 

But there is another difficulty. I have some business 
in Harrisburg. I wish to get some officers appointed. 


74 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

and to present a claim against the state for one month’s 
pay while recruiting. The claim is, I believe, good, and I 
need the money. 

My visit has been very pleasant, although I was un¬ 
fortunate in not receiving any pay at Washington, and I 
lost time by the detention of the cars. My time with my 
family has been necessarily shortened. My leave expires 
on the loth. As you very justly said, a ten days’ leave is 
too short for men in Western Pennsylvania. 

Tell mother I am sorry I could not see her. My poor 
little toads look so lonely in this dreary town with its old 
snow covered roofs that it seems cruel to leave them until 
the very last minute. They are all in good health, and 
are very comfortable. Mr. Lowry’s people are very kind 
to them. His house is quiet and well conducted. There 
is no noise or rowdyism about it. 

Perhaps the war will end before long and then we can 
all be together again, but I confess I cannot see a very 
brilliant prospect of peace. 


Camp, near Culpeper C. H., Va. 

Monday, Jan. i8, 1864. 

My Dear Brother : 

This is a rainy day. The mud is pretty deep and get¬ 
ting deeper. I am confined to my quarters by the dreary 
aspect of things out of doors, and by an order for in¬ 
spection, which will probably not be executed on account 
of the weather, but which, nevertheless, compels us to 
be in readiness for the brigade inspector. 

Will Stehley is still with me. The order detailing him 
protects him from any charge of negligence while he is 
here. His regiment is now engaged in picket duty on the 
Rapidan. The Rebels fire on them occasionally. This 
fact and the bad weather make it very desirable for Will 
to remain where he is for the present. He sleeps in my 
tent and eats in my mess at present, but if he remains 
with me he will put up quarters of his own. 

The two Biddles, Chapman and Alexander, in the 
121st have both resigned and gone home. Capt. Lloyd of 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 75 

that regiment is entitled to be promoted as Lieut. Col., 
being the Senior line officer, but Biddle threw his in¬ 
fluence in favor of the Adjutant, and it is said he will be 
appointed, though not in the line of promotion at all. 
Col. Biddle had some singular notions considering his in¬ 
dustry in studying tactics and army regulations. He 
maintained that an adjutant could command a regiment 
if he was the senior officer. Accordingly Lt. Gray, of 
Venango, who was the senior line officer last summer, had 
to yield to Adjutant Hall, who was not a line officer and 
never had been, but whose commission as adjutant was 
older than Gray's commission at lieutenant. On the 
same principle his surgeon, who was higher in rank than 
either, ought to have assumed the command. 

Capt. Lloyd has promised me that he will do some¬ 
thing for Charley Connely, who is Sergeant Major of 
the regiment. It seems to me that Charley ought to be 
entitled to a lieutenancy now, for several officers in the 
I2ist have resigned, among them George Plumer. I in¬ 
tend to see about it soon. The Philadelphia officers seem 
to have the matter their own way in that regiment, but 
they all wish to resign, and I presume an opening could 
be very easily made for Charley before spring by simply 
procuring the acceptance of the resignation which is 
most beneficial to him. Charley is all over military, and 
would make a good captain. 

Yesterday we were engaged in making out a list of 
our officers now present, and of casualties among those 
who are not with us. The latter was a pretty sad one. 
We have suffered considerably. 

In transmitting the blanks for this report the War De¬ 
partment was guilty of something like a bull. They sent 
two complete sets of blanks in one package with orders 
to us to make out two sets of returns and transmit them 
by different mails to ensure the reception of one set, in 
the event of the other being lost. Snowden and I con¬ 
cluded, that if such a precaution was necessary with the 
returns, it was certainly equally necessary with the blanks 
which the department had sent all in one bundle. 

I cannot see much hope of being mustered in as Col¬ 
onel. I saw Amos Myers and Col. Webster, of Maryland, 


76 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

while in Washington. Webster is now an M. C., and is 
fully convinced of the injustice done by the order to 
which I have heretofore referred. 

There are three officers in the ist brigade as now or¬ 
ganized who rank me, viz.: Roy Stone, Col. Wister and 
Col. Dana. Wister is trying to resign. Stone is at 
Washington, lame from a wound received at Gettysburg. 
I think he will be made a brigadier. I should like to 
have my muster as Colonel, for then I would stand a fair 
chance of being in actual command of the brigade before 
a year. It is some advantage in the way of comfort to 
be in that position, besides being highly respectable in the 
event of being killed. It ensures a fellow a decent fun¬ 
eral. 


Camp at Culpeper C. H., Va., 
Jan. JO, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

The weather until this morning and for a whole week 
has been beautiful. It was so warm that men sought 
the shady sides of their cabins for loafing places. Dur¬ 
ing this period of sunshine amusements became the or¬ 
der of the day. On Wednesday I dedicated a cabin 
which the men had built for me. The entertainment 
consisted of peach toddy, made out of fresh (can) 
peaches, sugar, nutmeg and commissary whisky. It is a 
very pleasant drink, and a decided improvement on apple 
toddy. About a dozen officers favored me with their 
presence. The staff from division headquarters, an agree¬ 
able and intelligent set of young men, came in a body. 
Among the rest were two field officers of the One Hun¬ 
dred and Forty-third—Colonel Dana and Major Conyng- 
ham. The latter is a son of Judge Conyngham, of 
Luzerne county. He is a fine looking young man, well 
educated and a lawyer by profession. Colonel Dana 
served as a captain in the Mexican War. He is a good 
lawyer and a fine scholar. He is beside, a very accom¬ 
plished and finished gentleman. 

It is some consolation to me in the trials and chances 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 77 

of the service to know that many better men than my- 
are suffering the same inconveniences and privations. 
Then the society of such men is very agreeable. A talk 
with Dana will dispel the blues at any time. 

Talking about privations and hardships, the history 
of yesterday, for instance, might convey an impression 
that the army is not the most miserable body of men 
after all. It was a lovely day, and the scenery around 
us was beautiful. A review of the First Division came 
off at 2 o’clock. I rode over with Colonel Dana. The 
display was very fine, although the division is much re¬ 
duced, but it has a fine New York brass band in it, and 
the One Hundred and Forty-first, Brooklyn regiment, 
with their red pants, is alone worth riding some miles 
to see. A number of ladies were present. At the close 
of the review we went by invitation over to the head¬ 
quarters of General Rice at a large farm house, and 
partook of some refreshments, to-wit, a glass of verv 
poor whisky. Still the ride was very pleasant. We re¬ 
turned with General Kenley and staff. Coming through 
Culpeper at corps headquarters I was hailed by Mr. 
Hays. The General, Aleck, was there, too, and Miss 
Rachel McFadden, whom you know, was mounted on a 
lively little horse. She was laughing just as heartily as 
ever. Aleck rode a fine black horse, and he went through 
the street just as he used to at Franklin when Lydia 
was with him. On the whole the meeting was calculated 
to make one feel younger. I forgot all about the Gen¬ 
eral and his staff, and remained with Aleck’s people until 
they dashed orrt of town like a party of guerillas. Aleck 
commands a division of the Second Corps, now lying at 
Steremburg. They invited me to attend church there 
to-morrow. 

In the evening, yesterday, a small party of us visited a 
gentleman in town for the purpose of hearing some 
music. We have a private in our regiment who sings 
well, and performs on the piano. He used to be a mem¬ 
ber of the Continental vocalists. His name is Hall, and 
he is called “Professor.” He was one of the party. He 
played and sang all his songs. A Virginia gentleman 
played the flute. Captain Cowdrey, of division staff. 


78 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

and myself played chess. We had no other entertain¬ 
ment. One of Hall’s songs, ‘'E Pluribus Unum,” was 
received with great favor. The lady of the house in¬ 
formed us that the words were by Mrs. Pendleton, a 
cousin of her’s. We left about lo o’clock. 

The paymaster will not visit us until after the first of 
March. The government is now behind time in paying 
troops. The veterans are taking all the money. I will 
find it very inconvenient to wait another month for my 
allowance, but this is one of the necessary annoyances of 
the service. 

Lieutenant Colonel Huidekooper, of the One Hundred 
and Fiftieth Regiment, called a few minutes ago. He 
lost an arm at Gettysburg. He is from Meadville. 

Shannon is in his regiment (Wister’s). Huidekooper 
complains of Governor Curtin’s treatment. It seemed 
strange to me that the Governor should have been rude 
to an officer who was crippled in the service, for he is a 
gentleman. Perhaps there may be another side to the 
story. 

This day is cold and damp. I presume we will soon 
have some more winter. 


Camp at Culpeper C. H., Va., 
Monday, Feb. 8, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

We have had pretty exciting times since Friday, an¬ 
other mud march, and, so far as this corps is concerned, 
nobody hurt, but I am afraid the loss of life in other 
parts of the army has more than overbalanced the ad¬ 
vantages gained by the move. 

I was down in Culpeper at a negro minstrel entertain¬ 
ment on Friday evening. Nearly half the officers of our 
division were there. The affair had been got up by the 
Brooklyn regiment. It displayed considerable talent. A 
boy sang a McClellan song. It was loudly applauded. 
Another minstrel added a verse somewhat detrimental to 
little Mac’s reputation, and it was also cheered, but not 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 79 

quite so vigorously. There are some officers in the 
army pretty bitter against McClellan. The general feel¬ 
ing, however, is in his favor. 

About 10 o’clock, during the performance, a telegram 
was received by General Newton, who was present. It 
soon got noised about that it contained marching orders, 
but I could not learn that it was reliable until after I 
reached my quarters, when an order came to be ready 
to move at 3 o’clock in the morning with three days’ 
rations in haversack. The move did not commence, how¬ 
ever, till 7 in the morning. We marched down to¬ 
ward the river. Cannonading soon commenced on the 
left toward Morton’s Ford. It began to look serious. 
When about a mile and a half from the river our division 
was formed in line in the woods, and there we lay until 
yesterday evening, when we marched back again. 

All day Saturday the cannonading continued at inter¬ 
vals. In the evening there was sharp musketry all down 
about Morton’s Ford, and near enough to sound un¬ 
pleasantly. It commenced raining Saturday noon and 
continued all night. I had taken a fly with me, and a 
good supply of provisions. Will Stehley rendered good 
service by returning to camp and bringing us out sup¬ 
plies and newspapers. The fly protected us from the 
rain, and we were not at all uncomfortable physically, 
but the prospect of having to cross the river was not very 
agreeable. We were spared that part of the arrange¬ 
ment. On Sunday, yesterday, we lay in the same place. 
There was some cannonading on our right and left. We 
heard that part of the Second Corps had crossed the river 
on Saturday at Morton’s Ford, and been driven back 
with a loss of two hundred men. It became clear again 
yesterday afternoon, and we received orders at sundown 
to fall in and march back to camp. The roads in the 
meantime had become very bad. It was starlight, but 
the men were often nearly mired in bad places. We 
reached camp about 9 o’clock, very glad that the move 
was over. 

It was rumored that the object of the move was to 
attract the enemy’s attention and prevent Lee sending 
re-inforcements to other points. It is now reported that 


8 o Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

he is threatening a flank movement by way of Sperry- 
ville, and that his infantry is at Madison Court House. 
Unless the mud should dry up very rapidly it will not be 
easy, however, for any heavy operations to be carried 
on this month. 

Yesterday while reposing under my fly and wondering 
what would come next, I received two very long and in¬ 
teresting letters from you, and another from my wife. 
One of yours contained two newspaper extracts. That 
charge of the Light Brigade was very well described, 
but it seems there were some left to tell the tale. After 
reading Tennyson’s verses I thought they were all killed. 

I presume the extract giving Booth’s opinion of Mc¬ 
Clellan is not true, but even if it is true, it proves noth¬ 
ing. I have never yet seen the residence of that distin¬ 
guished Virginian nor himself. Should I ever meet him 
I may inquire whether the paper contains his sentiments. 
I presume McClellan will be the Democratic candidate. 
The party should not make a nomination too early. In 
times like these a month may make a total revolution in 
popular sentiment. If the Democrats nominate early, 
and put Mac on the track, the Republicans might be com¬ 
pelled to take Grant. On the other hand, if the Repub¬ 
licans nominate first, Lincoln will probably have the best 
chance for the nomination. I believe, with McClellan, 
that we can beat either Lincoln or Chase. Grant, too, is 
probably more popular now than he ever will be again. 
I doubt whether either he or any other man can bring 
the war to a successful conclusion this year on the Radi¬ 
cal platform. 

I have heard nothing more about promotion since I 
wrote last. I guess the report from Washington did not 
amount to much. I shall wait awhile and see what pros¬ 
pect there is, and if I cannot be mustered in as Colonel I 
will resign. The more I think of the order which abol¬ 
ishes the office in every regiment which is reduced below 
the minimum by losses in battle the more unreasonable 
and unjust it appears. I do not allow myself to think 
of it much, for it makes me feel discontented. 

I must close soon, for the mail is about leaving. I am 
still in good health. 





Battle Flacls 142i) Pknnsylnaxia Volunteers, 
From a photo taken by the permission of Arljt.- Gen. Thomas Stewart. 












Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 8i 


, Camp at Culpeper C. H., Va., 

^ Saturday, Feb. ij, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

Since I wrote last I have received from you, I believe, 
two letters and a Harper’s Magazine. Your last refers 
to the matter of promotion. I have heard nothing more 
on the subject since my last, and my mind is quite at 
ease about it. It was reported that Colonel Roy Stone 
had been appointed. He commands the brigade when 
he is here, but that seldom happens. Should he receive 
a star he will gain it by virtue of a very small amount of 
service in the field. Still he has pretty good reason to 
expect it, for his name was once sent to the Senate at a 
time when the President nominated a very large number 
of Brigadiers, more than the law warranted. It is said, 
however, to-day that Stone has not been appointed. He 
was wounded at Gettysburg, and has been in Washing¬ 
ton ever since, able to walk about and work for promo¬ 
tion, but not able to go to the front. My chance of be¬ 
ing mustered in as Colonel is improving. They are send¬ 
ing down some recruits to the anny. I am going to 
make an effort to have my regiment filled up. 

Things here have resumed the same quiet appearance 
as before the last move, but you are aware that these 
seasons of repose are often suddenly interrupted. Wo¬ 
men are still permitted to visit the army. Many officers 
have their wives here. Theatrical entertainments on the 
parlor or private order are much in vogue. I have two 
invitations for this evening, but have concluded not to 
go. The Fourteenth Brooklyn has a considerable 
amount of musical and dramatic talent in it. The negro 
minstrel perfonnances of that regiment in Culpeper are 
quite amusing. The last evening ‘‘Banjo” addressed 
“Bones,” and told him of a little ride that he had taken 
with General Newton to see a girl. She was a fast wo¬ 
man. Her name was Rapid Ann. They got down near 
where she was and found so many fellows cuttin’ round 
her that they concluded to put off the visit. As the 
General himself was present, the joke passed off very 
pleasantly. 

There was a review to-day near our camp, of Merritt’s 


6 


82 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Division of Cavalry. The column passed twice before 
the reviewing officer. The bands played pretty well. 
When the column passed the second time at a trot, it 
was really exciting. There were about twenty ladies 
present at the review, nearly all wives of officers. 

One of the assistant surgeons has his wife in Culpeper. 
They are from Philadelphia. She is a real rollicking, 
cheerful, mischievous creature, and some of her oddi¬ 
ties excite considerable suspicion. She is, however, per¬ 
haps as good as other people—not quite as good as 
Caesar’s wife. She visited me the other day in com¬ 
pany with the doctor, and took dinner with us. Will 
Stehley had just received a box from home, and he was 
kind enough to give her some confectionery and fruit 
cake. The favor seemed to be highly appreciated, for 
such articles are rare in this locality. 

We have received no pay for three months. Yester¬ 
day we got a new commissary at brigade headquarters. 
He refuses to sell officers their supplies on credit. The 
army regulations require cash, but the same regulations 
require the troops to be paid every two months. Many 
of our officers have no money at all. We have hopes, 
however, that the paymaster will arrive in a week or 
two. 

The weather is still fine, just like spring. The roads 
are drying up very fast. Our camps look very clean and 
tidy. On all points we are much better off than we were 
last winter. The country around Culpeper is beautiful, 
even at this season. It is much like the Cumberland 
Valley, for the Blue Ridge chain is a very striking fea¬ 
ture in the landscape, and it is fifteen or twenty miles 
distant. A large stream of water would make this one 
of the most romantic spots in the world. 

We have again got a fiddle in camp and some of our 
men are playing it nearly all the evening. Others sing 
Methodist hymns, and to hear the sounds this moonlight 
evening one would hardly suppose that we were in the 
midst of a war, and so far in front as to need but a 
march of two hours to meet the enemy. 

George Snowden has just dropped into my cabin. He 
thinks of resigning. His experience in the army will be 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 83 

of great use to him. George has kept a diary regularly 
ever since he came out. It will be a pretty good his¬ 
torical document. 


Camp near Culpeper C. H,, Va.^ 
Feb. 2^, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

The paymaster arrived on Friday and paid us up to 
the 21 St of December. We have mustered to-day for 
two months more, but there is no knowing when it will 
suit the powers to settle. 

The Sixth Corps went out toward Madison Court 
House on Saturday. We have not heard enough firing 
in that direction to indicate that they have yet met with 
any opposing force. This corps has been under orders 
to be ready to move on short notice. 

I am in bad luck just now. The House of Representa¬ 
tives passed an amendment to the Senate enrollment bill 
which, if it had been concurred in, would have enabled 
me to be mustered in as Colonel, but the Committee of 
Conference struck it out. This settles my prospect of 
promotion for the present. If I could be mustered I 
would stand third in rank in the regimental commanders 
of the brigade, and Stone’s promotion or resignation, 
one or the other of which is very probable, would put me 
second in rank. But now there is nothing for it but to 
wait till we are filled up, and the prospect of receiving 
any recruits is very small. 

It is only a few minutes since I learned that the Com¬ 
mittee of Conference had struck out the House amend¬ 
ment. It was quite a damper. Besides, this is one of 
those cold, damp, cloudy days that make a man look on 
the dreary side of everything. I could take up the Book 
of Ecclesiastes and appropriate the sentiments of the 
preacher from beginning to end. 

The fine weather seems to be over. We have had a 
remarkable month, only three days very cold, and no 
rain or snow of any account. The roads are dry. Re- 


84 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

views, balls and jollifications have been the regular order 
of exercises. We must have some weeks of mud and 
rain and sleet before" spring comes in earnest, and I think 
the bad season is about commencing. It makes me 
shiver to think of marching and lying out at such a 
time. And we have good reason to apprehend a move¬ 
ment of some sort, but it will not probably accomplish 
much. 

I had a letter from Cossfroth, M. C., from Somerset 
county. He is a friend of mine, and is blowing some 
about making me a Brigadier, but there are half a dozen 
good reasons why he cannot accomplish anything. Ac¬ 
cordingly I shall not look for it. 

I was much distressed to hear of John Evans being so 
ill. Poor aunt has had a sad lot. God keep her. I 
thought about her yesterday evening nearly half an hour. 
She has not known anything but trouble for many years. 
And yet I, with health and prosperity, grieve over a few 
months delay in a trifling promotion. 

Another disappointment occasioned by the movement 
of the Sixth Corps was my failure to get another leave 
of absence. My application had gone to corps headquar¬ 
ters regularly approved when the order to have the coips 
held in readiness for a move, stopped everything in the 
leave and furlough line. 

But even in this disappointment I have some consola¬ 
tion. Traveling is expensive, and if I were on leave I 
would spend a great deal of money that my wife can 
apply to better purposes than those for which I would 
probably use it. There is nothing like philosophy. It 
is consoling but not exhilarating. It is like the gentle 
stimulating influence of tobacco. It tranquilizes without 
intoxicating. It assuages grief without exciting merri¬ 
ment. 

Dr. Keely and myself, while sitting in the rain one 
night by a camp fire, beguiled the time by endeavoring 
to convert ourselves to the stoical doctrine that pain is 
imaginary. I have tried the same thing when suffering 
with the toothache. Religion is, however, I believe, a 
better remedy for such ills, but the trouble is that few 
persons have enough of it to serve any practical purpose. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 85 

A firm faith in a happy future beyond the grave ought 
to make its possessor cheerful under the worst calamity. 
But who has such faith? Who is there who is not more 
elated by the immediate prospect of a successful money 
speculation than by the remote hope of eternal life? The 
rest of this sermon will be postponed. 


Washington, D. C., March 18, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

I am ordered on recruiting service until April ist. I 
will go to Harrisburg to-night and remain there prob¬ 
ably two weeks. 


Harrisburg, Pa., April 4, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

I arrived here yesterday from Pittsburg, and received 
your letter. I was much pleased with the sale of Pithole. 
I am satisfied with the matter either way, but I presume 
$44,000 with stock is better than $50,000 without it. 

Colonel Bomford is very kind. It is not yet deter¬ 
mined whether I will remain here. The Colonel wishes 
me to stay a few days. 


Harrisburg, Pa., April p, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

I have just received an order from the War Depart¬ 
ment detailing me for duty as commandant of Camp 
Curtin. Colonel Bomford did the business. His re¬ 
membrance of you was probably the main reason for his 
action. 


86 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

All equip pa, April nth, 

My Dear Brother: 

I received a letter yesterday from Alfred informing 
me of his appointment as commandant of Camp Curtin. 
We are not going to Harrisburg for some time. He 
will get a quiet boarding place before I will venture with 
the children there. Give my love to Lizzie, and tell her 
when I get to Harrisburg I expect to hear often of her 
and her family. I felt very sorry for mother when I 
heard Alex. Wilson had enlisted, but it is what we must 
all make up our minds to in these troublous times, Pitts¬ 
burg is very pleasant, all sorts of entertainments, and 
everybody looking forward to the fair with pleasure. 
Will you please put the sewing machine on a boat and 
direct to Uncle McCandless’ care. Every machine is in 
requisition, and I feel as if mine would be an accommo¬ 
dation. The children are all well and enjoying them¬ 
selves very much. Good-bye. God bless you all. 

Yours, 

S. F. McCalmont. 


Harrisburg, Pa., May p. 

Dear Brother: 

The army news is very encouragmg. You have heard 
all. The fate of’^Alexander Hays will be as sad news 
to you as to me. It is no matter about his faults now. 
One of them was that he did not appreciate his friends. 
He had his father’s failing on that point. But he is 
gone, poor fellow. I will always remember him with 
warm feelings. He had many generous impulses. The 
poor old man, his father, is now nearly childless. It 
seems hard for a man to outlive his line. 

I again request that you will not do anything toward 
putting my name forward for Congress. The extrem¬ 
ists of our party have gotten us into such a position 
that there is no prospect of success, and I cannot endure 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 87 

the present administration. I do not say much about 
politics here. There never is much propriety in political 
discussions and wrangles. 


Harrisburg, Pa., May i^, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

I am still here without any intimation of orders to 
leave, though it is possible the camp will be vacated ere 
long. It seems to be diminishing in importance. 

I have almost held my breath at the news from the 
army, but it seems to be clearing up. I could not make 
a victory out of the first two or three days’ operations, 
but the fact that the Rebels fell back, and that in the 
last fight they lost about thirty pieces of cannon, seems 
to leave no doubt about our success. One almost shud¬ 
ders to think how near a defeat it must have been. Our 
army should have been stronger. We should have run 
no risks. Fifty thousand more troops would have saved 
us twenty thousand men. 

I have heard little news save what you have read in 
the papers. Major Warren, commanding my regiment, 
behaved well. Several officers in it were wounded. One 
fine young man from Fayette county, Lieutenant Col¬ 
lins, was shot through the heart. He was commanding 
Company H. 

Colonel Dana, One Hundred and Forty-third, was 
wounded and taken prisoner. I have written about him 
before in my letters to you. He was a lawyer of some 
promin,ence from Luzerne county, and a friend of Judge 
Woodward. His Lieutenant Colonel (Musser) was killed. 
The field officers in our brigade must have suffered se¬ 
verely, for I understand our Major (Warren) now com¬ 
mands it. Since I have heard from him, however, he 
may be killed also. The losses in officers seem to have 
been terrible. I have seen Hoover Shannon’s name in 
the list of wounded, but have no other information about 

him. . 

I am satisfied that I escaped the terrible trial. It is 


88 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

true it would have been more creditable to have been 
with my men, but when I sat down to tea this evening 
with my wife and children I had no regret for the lost 
honor. Probably I will have still ample opportunity to 
be in as many fights as will be at all agreeable. The 
facilities for dying for the country are numerous. 

The end is not yet, though things look more hopeful. 
With every success the powers demand new and more 
rigorous terms. Will they not learn the policy of being 
moderate in the hour of victory ? 

Tell mother that just now there is not much to be 
done for Aleck, but I trust the result of the victory will 
be to lighten the work of the western troops, and, may 
God grant it, to close the war. It seems as if all the 
good men were to be sacrificed. 

It has been raining here for two days. It is probable 
that the same kind of weather prevails on the Rappa¬ 
hannock, and it may delay operations. 

Love to mother and your family. I feel grateful to¬ 
night that I have been spared a share in this last strug¬ 
gle. As you once well remarked, a man must recognize 
other claims as well as those of his country, and I am 
satisfied that I would have been justified in resigning 
six months ago. I have no idea of resigning now, how¬ 
ever, and if ordered to my regiment, I shall go without 
murmuring. 


Harrisburg, May 14, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

My wife and children are well. I have no intimation 
of being sent to the front, but the Telegraph (Repub¬ 
lican) is abusing Bomford every day, and perhaps he 
will be removed. I have escaped some hard fighting,, 
and can go now with cheerfulness wherever ordered. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 89 
Harrisburg, Pa., May 16, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

I have still no intimation of any change in my orders. 
It is true, just now, I am of no use here, but my regi¬ 
ment is not now larger than a full company, and I can¬ 
not see that I would be of any more service in front. 
I shall not make any effort either to remain or to be 
ordered to the front, but shall obey orders. It would 
not do to resign just now. 

The war news is encouraging, but the thing is not 
over. I learn from a gentleman just from Washington 
that re-inforcements are going forward to Grant every 
day. 

My regiment has suffered considerably. I have not 
heard full particulars. Another captain has been killed 
in it. 

I had a talk with old ex-Governor Porter. He evi¬ 
dently inclines to the idea that the Democrats ought to 
go for Grant. 

I presume McClellan cannot be elected now. The 
question is how to get an administration that will sink 
the nigger and go in for a practical restoration of the 
Union. I believe a General is better than a civilian just 
now, because the men who are engaged in war know and 
feel how great a curse it is, and want it ended. 

Any change almost would be for the better. On the 
subjugation platform we will never have peace at all. 


Harrisburg, Pa., May 2^, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

I have seen several persons from the army lately. The 
Eighth Pennsylvania Reserves passed through town on 
their way to Pittsburg. Officers of that regiment tell 
me that Grant has received re-inforcements since the 
fight, to an extent sufficient to overbalance his losses. 
Some estimate the re-inforcements at 70,000. They 


90 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

have sent off every available man from Washington. 
The heavy artillery regiments have been sent to the 
front. 

They say Grant beats McClellan digging. The men 
are constantly using the spade. 

There is no mistake about our army having achieved 
a victory, but the loss is heavy and the position of the 
enemy still very strong. More fighting was expected 
every day. 

They say the troops are kept on the move a great 
deal. There is more manoeuvering than formerly. The 
Reserve officers say that Meade appears to be the man¬ 
ager, in fact. 

Our regiment lost 138 men in killed, wounded and 
missing—about half of the number present for duty. 

The Reserves did not fight as well as formerly. The 
near approach of the end of their term, and the refusal 
to allow them to be mustered out will account for this. 

Major Over will be under charges again. One officer 
told me that nothing can save him this time. I am sorry 
for it, for Over was always very friendly toward me, 
and he is an admirable drill officer. 


Harrisburg, Pa., June 6, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

This has been a great day here in consequence of the 
return of the Pennsylvania Reserves. Not having any 
part in the ceremonies, I found a cool place on the bal¬ 
cony of the Jones House and sat there patiently an hour 
or more while the procession was forming. At last the 
firing of cannon announced that it was moving. First 
the escort came down Market street. It consisted of the 
battery of artillery stationed here. Then came the Re¬ 
serves, looking very sunburnt, and miserably reduced in 
numbers. One regiment, the Seventh, had only about 
twenty men in it. I kept a sharp lookout for the Tenth. 
Captain Phipps was at the head of it on foot. I went 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont, 91 

down and spoke to him, and would have walked along 
with him, but just then some person brought him a horse, 
and he finished the business up in due form. 

^ The procession was not long in passing. The main 
civic feature of it was the fire engines. One of them 
had steam up, and the whistle of the blamed thing blew 
till everybody was nearly deaf. I do not know whether 
the steam was exhausted or whether the thing was sup¬ 
pressed as a nuisance, but at any rate, when the proces¬ 
sion came back again the noise was stopped. They 
moved down Market street to the bridge, then down 
Front street, then over to Second, up Second to State 
street, and then up State street to the capitol. 

There was great enthusiasm manifested by the people. 
There was great waving of handkerchiefs and immense 
cheering. When they passed the square the second time 
every soldier had a bouquet of flowers stuck in the end 
of his musket, and the officers were still more abundant¬ 
ly supplied. On the whole it was a very fine demonstra¬ 
tion, and somewhat touching in its suggestions. It was 
not easy to witness it with dry eyes. 

At the capitol speeches were made, but nobody heard 
much of them. I stood within ten feet of the speakers, 
and only made out a few sentences. But the men cheered 
intensely, and I presume the remarks were eloquent. The 
Governor and other speakers were shaded, while address¬ 
ing the audience, by a green umbrella, a point which a 
historical painter would be very apt to overlook fifty 
years hence. The speeches were delivered from the 
steps of the Executive Building or Auditor General’s 
office. 

After all was over the Reserves came out to camp. I 
have seen a good many of the officers this afternoon, and 
heard a great deal of the recent movements. They esti¬ 
mate Grant’s force variously, but the most reliable of 
them put it at about 150,000. 

It seems the Reserves ran like good fellows in the fight 
a week ago, but they rallied and gave the Rebels a com¬ 
plete dressing. The latter, seeing their temporary con¬ 
fusion, advanced very confidently and were in turn driven 
back with great loss. From all I can learn the advance 


92 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

was very hazardous, and if the men had not fallen back 
would have lost the whole division. 

I have heard a great many kind remarks made about 
you by your old soldiers. I never heard anything else 
among them. 

They all have a very high opinion of General Meade, 
but think that Grant has more pertinacity. Spades are 
in demand again. An order came yesterday for all the 
picks and shovels that could be furnished, and several 
thousand were forwarded. I presume the taking of 
Richmond is going to be a work of some time. 

I have been writing this merely to put in the time be¬ 
fore going to bed. 


Harrisburg, Pa., June ij, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

The Reserves are still here, but some of them will suc¬ 
ceed in getting mustered out to-day. They had great 
difficulty in making out their rolls. 

There are eight more regiments of Pennsylvania Vol¬ 
unteers to be discharged this month, and five or six in 
July. My camp will therefore probably not be broken 
up, and I may remain here a month longer. 

I heard from the regiment the other day. It has not 
been in any more hard fights since the Wilderness. The 
division is lying within fourteen miles of Richmond. 

The prospect of taking the city immediately is not 
very bright. It is not easy to see that Grant is any 
nearer that result than McClellan was at the correspond¬ 
ing date in the year 1862. 

As soon as the $300 exemption is repealed there will 
be another draft. I expect it will be a pretty heavy one, 
and it will come harder on the people than any of the 
past ones. I think the money commutation is all wrong, 
but the draft ought to have been made last winter. The 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 93 

men will not reach the field in time for service in this 
campaign, and we may be defeated in the meantime for 
want of them. 

Should Grant succeed in spite of the miserable man¬ 
agement at Washington, he will indeed deserve credit. 
He has been much more favored than ever McClellan 
was, but still the administration has not even yet come 
up to the demands of the time. 


Harrisburg, Pa., July 20, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

I have had enough to do during the last few days. I 
have hardly had time to eat. We have about two thou¬ 
sand one hundred days' men in camp and they are still 
arriving. So far I have got along without much com¬ 
plaint from any quarter, except the women, whom I have 
excluded. It was found that under pretense of selling 
pies and doing washing, they stole large quantities of 
blankets, tents and other property, and that they carried 
on prostitution to an extent that would seem incredible. 
They used to come up in droves. Now we are not fa¬ 
vored by them. 

The Harrisburg Telegraph is severe on Colonel Bom- 
ford. It all arises out of his refusal to give the editor 
his printing. Bomford will perhaps be relieved. 

I have not been in town often for a week. The last 
time was on Monday evening for a few hours. There 
was quite a gay company at the Jones House. Generals 
Sigel and Couch were there. The former played the 
piano. Some lady sang like a regular prima donna. 

I have seen General Couch frequently lately. He is a 
very agreeable man. Mrs. Couch is a very modest, un¬ 
pretending lady, and is very generally esteemed. My 
wife is delighted with her. 

General Sigel gave Bob a glass of wine. The young 
rascal thought it was a grand honor. 

After a long dry spell, with any amount of dust, we 


94 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

have at last had a shower of rain. This evening is cool 
and pleasant. The promise of a comfortable sleep is 
quite refreshing. At night Oliver and I have the build¬ 
ing to ourselves, but business commences at daylight and 
then there is nothing but a rush till after dark. 


Harrisburg, Pa., July 2^, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

Colonel Bomford has been relieved under the pressure 
of the attacks in the Harrisburg Telegraph. I cannot 
find that my own appointment here, or anything that I 
have said or done has been laid against him as objection¬ 
able. I have not been alluded to in any manner. 

It is somewhat singular that I have escaped, for there 
has been any amount of complaining about almost every¬ 
body. 

General Irwin has been appointed Adjutant General 
during the temporary abdication of Aleck Rupell. Aleck, 
they say, has unfortunately been on a big drunk and has 
used pretty rough language about the President and 
others in authority. But this is confidential. Rupell has 
been very kind to me personally. 

We have twenty companies of one hundred men in 
camp. They are to be sent to Washington to-morrow 
evening. I am sitting up late to sign requisitions when¬ 
ever wanted. I have been very busy for a week. They 
do not give me time to eat. I have only seen my wife 
twice, I think, since last Sunday. 


Harrisburg, Pa., Aug. 25, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

The Fifth Corps has been in a big fight. I presume 
my regiment was engaged, but I have heard nothing 
definite. Colonel Durhane, of the Seventh Maryland, 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 95 

was killed. I was well acquainted with him. The corps, 
it seems, held its position on the railroad after a stubborn 
contest. If it is able to maintain itself there, the point 
will be a considerable gain. 

I think now if we are not compelled to raise the siege 
of Richmond this fall it will be nearly as much as we 
can expect. It is not very probable that it will be taken. 
The demonstration in the Shenandoah looks threatening 
again. The Rebels there are apparently too strong for 
Sheridan. There are still two months for active opera¬ 
tions, and a strong probability of them closing in Vir¬ 
ginia without a decisive result. 

I think the election will go against the administration. 
The President is not popular. He is despised, I believe, 
or held in very slight esteem by his own party and nearly 
everybody else. Nothing can save him, but the idea 
that his election is necessary to prevent the South from 
dictating their own terms. With McClellan for a can¬ 
didate there would be no such apprehension. If an un¬ 
conditional peace man is nominated at Chicago we will 
be defeated. 

I do not talk politics. Judge Scofield, as a sort of fish¬ 
ing interrogatory, said to me the other day: “Who is 
going to be nominated by your party at Chicago, or is it 
still your party?” Without apparently noticing the last 
part of the question, I replied “McClellan.” We did not 
have any discussion about it. I think Scofield is not a 
very great admirer of the Rail Splitter. 


Harrisburg, Pa., Aug. ji, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have a great deal of work just now. There are about 
three thousand men in camp. One regiment has gone, 
and three more will be organized this week. Some of 
the officers wish me to take the Colonelcy of one of them, 
but I am not quite satisfied to do it. It is the only way 
I can get promotion, but I do not know that it would 
be in other respects of any advantage. I would be in a 


96 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

brigade commanded by some man who has seen less ser¬ 
vice than myself, which was one of the evils incident to 
the life in Virginia. Then the idea of leaving my wife 
and children in a week for another winter campaign is 
not agreeable. I think I shall decline the proffered 
honor. The term of service would be precisely the same, 
however, as that which is left to me now in my own 
regiment, but I would have no excuse for resigning, and 
it may be necessary for me to leave the army soon. 

All the newspaper intelligence to-day is cheering. I 
am delighted by the nomination of McClellan. If some 
great and decisive result is not attained by our armies in 
a month he will be elected, which will be a glorious event. 
If some great and decisive result should be attained we 
can afford to see him defeated, but I cannot see hope 
of such a change in military operations and fortunes as 
to reverse the tide of public sentiment which appears to 
be setting in very strongly against the Rail Splitter. 

My boy Oliver has left me and enlisted. I believe he 
got about five hundred dollars. He might have got a 
thousand as a substitute, but he would not wait a day or 
two at my suggestion. 

Bounties seem to have gone mad. Each regiment gets 
about a half a million of dollars. It is all paid in new 
bank notes of county banks. The increase of-paper cir¬ 
culation in this month will be fearful, probably twenty 
millions of dollars. We cannot carry on a war very long 
at this rate. We must come down to the Southern sys¬ 
tem or quit. Still the South is much worse off, and I 
believe, very anxious for peace. The election of Mc¬ 
Clellan may change the tone of public sentiment in that 
region. 



Col. a. ]?. M(;Calmont, 
Before Petersburg):, Va., 1865. 


I 





• ft 





% 


t . f 




^ i 

> 





Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 97 
Harrisburg, Pa., Sept, ii, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have accepted the appointment of Colonel in the 
Two Hundred and Eighth Regiment, and will leave Har¬ 
risburg soon. 

It seems my decision was pretty fortunate. The War 
Department issued an order on the 7th appointing 
Colonel Roy Stone to this post. I think it would have 
been all the same whether I had taken a regiment or not. 

The War Department has telegraphed that my trans¬ 
fer and promotion are all right. I presume I will be 
mustered to-day. I will have a fine, large regiment. 


Harrisburg, Pa., Sept. 21, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

The news from Sheridan is cheering. I would have 
no objection to a victory by Grant before going to the 
front. 


Harrisburg, Pa., Oct. 10, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

Captain Dodge, commanding the post, reports to the 
War Department that I have done ^‘a vast amount of 
work” and done it ^‘well.” He also reports that I can 
join my regiment without detriment to the service (quite 
a compliment), but that if I go immediately the rolls will 
have to be forwarded to me in the field for signature. 
So I will probably either stay to sign them or come back 
to do it, for they will hardly send me three hundred rolls 
by mail to be signed. 


7 


98 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Harrisburg, Pa., Oct. i8, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have not yet received my order to join my regiment, 
but my work is nearly finished and I will go as soon as 
it is done. 

I have had intimations from several sources that if I 
were to change my political views and make a few stump 
speeches on the other side it would be greatly to my ad¬ 
vantage. I shall not avail myself of these offers or any 
of them. I have done so many things wrong in my life 
that I cannot afford to carry with me the consciousness 
of having been actually sold. 


Harrisburg, Pa., Nov. 4, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have been detained here much longer than I expected. 
I am now, however, ready to go, and will leave certainly 
on Monday. I could have, by hurrying, gone to-day, 
but the old superstition about Friday made me dilatory. 

I sent you my proxy. After it had gone I had a dim 
suspicion or recollection that Squire Klein had omitted 
to sign the authority as a witness. I hope, however, 
that it will prove to l3e all right. My position here as a 
McClellan man is well known. I have not been very 
talkative, but have not courted favor by pretending to be 
on the other side. A Republican correspondent volun¬ 
teered to give me a puff in a Philadelphia paper. Then 
he read it to me, and then he wanted to borrow ten 
dollars. By the way, there is a great deal of borrowing 
here. I am out of pocket considerably on that score, 
though the most of my creditors of that kind have paid 
me. 

I presume McClellan will be defeated, but it cannot be 
helped. He will make a pretty strong run under the cir¬ 
cumstances. This will have some effect in controlling 
the action of the administration. I saw William H. Mil¬ 
ler this morning. He was candidate for Congress here. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 99 

and is a member of the old Congress. He has recently 
seen McClellan, and has a high opinion of his abilities. 

^ Rather a good thing has happened lately as an illustra¬ 
tion of the beauties of the detective system. The govern¬ 
ment employed five or six men to come here a month 
ago when the new regiments were being formed, for the 
purpose of keeping a watch on the officers, and prevent¬ 
ing bounty jumping. Merely to show how the thing 
could be done (?) they enlisted under fictitious names. 
Each man enlisted and was mustered in this way four or 
five times, each time drawing five hundred dollars local 
bounty. Of course, the purpose was to illustrate the facil¬ 
ity by which the fraud could be perpetrated, but when 
the matter came to be sifted, it turned out that the de¬ 
tectives had vamosed and taken all the money with them. 
The elephant, that was taught to put a dime on the top 
of a post out of reach, but was not taught how to get it 
down again, affords a fair illustration of this nice little 
swindle. I have precious little confidence in the detective 
system, or the Jesuitical policy of using fraud to defeat 
fraud. It makes more rascals than it punishes. 

I feel very cheerful about leaving. It is true I had 
some regrets at giving up good dinners and a snug bed 
to resume camp life, but I have been pretty fortunate 
this summer and ought to consider myself as one of the 
favored few. I have no particular forebodings about 
the consequences, and will do my duty without complain¬ 
ing. I will be in a vein for corresponding after regain¬ 
ing the army and will give you news from time to time. 


Saturday, Nov. ip, 1864. 
Camp, near Bermuda Landing, 
Headquarters 208th Reg. P. V. 

My Dear Wife: 

I have just received your letter of the i6th. I will 
need all the consolation that your dear correspondence 
can afford, for this is a dismal place in bad weather. It 
has been raining all night, and the storm still continues. 
Yesterday afternoon I rode with Lieutenant Colonel 


100 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Heintzelman along the line of breastworks. At every 
point the men were placed on the extreme front, as if 
anticipating an attack. The subject of conversation 
everywhere was the capture by the Confederates of 
Colonel Kauffman, of the Two Hundred and Ninth. We 
understood that an effort would be made to recapture 
some of the ground on the picket line, which had been 
lost the night before. Well, about 9 o’clock last night 
the musketry fire opened in earnest and continued for 
about an hour. It was quite dark and there was a cold 
rain falling. The men who were not on picket were all 
deployed on the breastwork. I could not see that I had 
anything to do but remain in one place, for my men 
were scattered along the line for about a mile. I, how¬ 
ever, rode out a short distance toward the right, and 
shivered a half hour in the rain until the firing ceased. 
Then I came back with the Lieutenant Colonel and slept 
soundly until morning. I have not heard what the re¬ 
sult was. 

The picket line is about one-half mile in front of the 
breastwork. It extends from the James river on the 
right, to the Appomattox on the left. Our regiment is 
on the extreme left of the breastwork and in sight of the 
Appomattox. The worst part of the duty here is picket¬ 
ing. My turn as general officer of the line will come 
about once a week. I presume my first experience will 
be to-morrow. The line runs through a dense pine forest 
cut up with deep ravines, and it is impossible to ride 
the entire length of it. The Rebel line is almost within 
speaking distance of ours. 

Our men are in comfortable quarters. They have 
nice little log cabins. The Lieutenant Colonel and I 
have a cabin together. It is better than the one I occu¬ 
pied last winter. The fare, too, seems to be good. In¬ 
deed, on all points the locality is better than I expected, 
but still not quite as comfortable as the Jones House. 

Tell Mrs. Fenn that Captain Dalien holds daily inter¬ 
course with the Rebels. He gave me some Richmond 
papers yesterday procured in exchange for ours. He 
has also supplied the cabin with tobacco from the same 
source. They say that one day he procured some to- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. loi 

bacco, and on his way home had the luck to kill a musk¬ 
rat. He skinned the animal, and put the skin in the same 
pocket with the tobacco. Nevertheless the latter is very 
good. Some think it improves the flavor. 

We are in no danger here of forgetting that there is a 
state of war actually existing. The Rebels fire a shell 
at Butler’s canal about every ten minutes. Then up at 
Petersburg, some six or eight miles ofif, they have some 
kind of Fourth of July entertainment at almost an)^ 
hour. I have not been here long, but I have already 
become so much accustomed to the thing that I can dis¬ 
tinguish the dififerent shots without difficulty, and hear 
them without annoyance. The musketry firing, how¬ 
ever, on the picket line is unpleasant, when it happens, 
but it never lasts long at a time. 

On the whole I am by no means miserable. This is 
one of the most dismal days imaginable. The cold storm 
of wind and rain keeps driving on, and the cannon keep 
slowly pounding away with a strange sort of dignified 
pertinacity. There is not much in the situation or cir¬ 
cumstances to make life agreeable, and yet I am quite 
cheerful, have a good appetite and good spirits. I be¬ 
lieve the ^most gloomy feeling I experience is when I 
look at the poor men on duty in the rain, and what I 
feel for them by way of sympathy diminishes my own 
consciousness of personal sufferings. If these poor fel¬ 
lows can stand their lot, I certainly should bear mine. 


Headquarters 208th, P. Vi8th Army Corps, 
Bermuda Hundred, Nov. ig, 1864. 

Dear Brother: 

I wrote to my wife this morning and requested her to 
send the letter to you. I thought it was probable, from 
the appearance of things, that I would not have an op¬ 
portunity of writing to-day. I am expecting to be sent 
out on picket as general officer of the line. 

We are lying on the left of a line of breastworks which 
extends from the Appomattox to the James river. Most 
of the other one-year regiments, which were organized 


102 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

in September at Camp Curtin, are lying near the same 
works on our right. The Confederate line of works is 
about a mile from us, and the picket lines are very near 
each other. The ground to the front and rear is cov¬ 
ered with pine woods, and broken up by deep ravines. 
Immediately in front of the breastworks there is a slash¬ 
ing, or Jefferson county clearing, somewhat difficult of 
access. 

I came here yesterday and was warmly received. The 
band, a very good one, gave me a serenade in the even¬ 
ing. About an hour later' there was a change of pro¬ 
gram and a general fire of musketry on the picket line. 
I began to think I was in for it the first night, but the 
thing subsided gradually, and I had a comfortable night’s 
sleep. 

The regiment is scattered over an extent of a mile, 
but the companies are still under the same command. 
They are all in good quarters. All the men have good 
cabins. Lieutenant Colonel Heintzelman and myself oc¬ 
cupy a very comfortable little home, and if we are al¬ 
lowed to spend the winter in it I will not complain, but 
the present motions indicate rough work. The Confed¬ 
erates night before last made a raid on our picket line 
and captured the general officer of the day. Colonel 
Kauffman, of the Two Hundred and Ninth P. V. 1 
understood the fight last night was to re-occupy the 
ground lost on the evening previous. 

It has been raining all night and all day. The weather 
is very disagreeable for military operations, and the 
poor men suffer considerably. They have to picket 
every other day, and the rest of the time, night and day, 
they are kept under arms at the breastworks. Our bat¬ 
teries on the right fired all morning. They have dis¬ 
continued since I commenced writing. Up at Peters¬ 
burg there is some kind of a fight going on all the time. 
Last night the musketry in that direction was heavy and 
very distinctly heard here, though it is six or seven miles 
distant. 

We have a signal station a few rods from camp. It 
is precisely like an oil derrick, but some forty feet higher. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 103 

So you see I cannot avoid the eternal greasy subject 
even here. I thought I would forget all about it. 

I am much more comfortably situated than I ex¬ 
pected, but this is a dreary place for the Christmas holi¬ 
days. 

I have a very fine regiment. The men are well be¬ 
haved, and the company officers are a very competent 
and faithful set of men. We are under a New Hamp¬ 
shire Colonel named Potter, who commands the Pro¬ 
visional Brigade. They say my men are terrible on 
eating. Many jokes are cracked about their appetites. 
A proposition has been made to change the army ration. 
One man, who eats 37 crackers in 24 hours (10 is the 
allowance), when told that we were in the Provisional 
Brigade, said he did not believe a word of it. 


Camp near Peables House, 
Nov. 29, 1864. 

My Dear Wife: 

We arrived here yesterday. On our way we passed 
the One Hundred and Forty-second, and I wrote you a 
note at Colonel Warren’s cabin. We are now on the ex¬ 
treme left of the line of the Army of the Potomac, but 
will go back to-morrow to encamp nearer the right of 
the line and about five miles from City Point. The 
move is not very easy to comprehend in all its aspects, 
but it has this explanation, that the Second and Ninth 
Corps are mutually exchanging positions. The former 
is moving over here, and the latter is going to the ground 
recently occupied by the Second. To us the consequence 
is simply that we must march over the ground which we 
traveled' yesterday. The difficult thing to see through, 
however, is why the two corps should change places at 
all. I cannot understand it, but fortunately for the coun¬ 
try it is not important that I should be able to compre¬ 
hend the various movements. There are rumors that the 
Ninth Corps is going to leave this army, but our Briga¬ 
dier General does not intimate anything of the kind. 


104 Extracts. From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Our march to this point gave us a fine opportunity of 
seeing the entire army, and the position which it occu¬ 
pies. We have come round so far that the cannon at 
Dutch Gap and Petersburg are heard in a northeasterly 
direction, and have the low, sullen sound of very distant 
thunder. 

On our march I met many old friends. Little Will 
Connely took me by surprise in the pine woods near the 
One Hundred and Forty-second. I saw nearly all of the 
One Hundred and Forty-second, and a great many ac¬ 
quaintances in other regiments. We had to report at 
General Meade’s headquarters, where I met Jno. Craig, 
Captain Bache, who recruited at Franklin, and several 
other acquaintances on the General’s staff. Will Riddle, 
Major, was indisposed, but I spoke to him at his tent 
door. 

The weather is fortunately very pleasant. We have 
had no rain and the nights are not very cold. I hope 
there will be no change until we are permanently located. 

The six regiments—Two Hundredth, Two Hundred 
and Fifth, Two Hundred and Seventh, Two Hundred 
and Eighth, Two Hundred and Ninth, Two Hundred 
and Eleventh—are now provisionally brigaded together, 
and under command of Brigadier General Hartranft. 
Both he and Major General Park, the corps commander, 
impressed me very favorably. We will probably be di¬ 
vided into two brigades, and compose together the Third 
Division, Ninth Corps. 

When we are settled in our new camp I will write to 
you my impressions. Just now there are poor facilities 
for writing. Should you write to Eranklin soon you 
may enclose this. I am in good health, but rather dirty. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 105 

Camp near Petersburg, Va. 

Dec. I, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

On Sunday the white regiments at the defences of 
Bermuda Hundred including our own were relieved by a 
lot of colored troops, and we took up our march with or¬ 
ders to report to General Meade. On Sunday night we 
encamped on this side of the Appomattox, the next day 
we moved on and reported to General Williams who as¬ 
signed us to the Ninth Corps, which then lay on the ex¬ 
treme left of the line. The road was all through pine 
woods and along the line of the military railroad. Be¬ 
fore reaching Meade’s headquarters I passed the camp of 
the One Hundred and Forty-Second, and saw many old 
friends. Willy Connely, who is detailed as a clerk at 
some division headquarters, spoke to me on the road, and 
rather surprised me though I knew he was here some¬ 
where. 

We did not remain long on the left of the line. An 
order was already issued for the Ninth and Second Corps 
to exchange positions. We marched back yesterday 
morning, and we are now encamped about a mile or less 
in the rear of our outer line of works in immediate sight 
of Petersburg, and about eight miles from City Point. 
The enemy can throw shell into our camp and even to 
the railroad in our rear. They are throwing a few to¬ 
day but not precisely in our direction. I saw one explode 
over a piece of woods to our left since I commenced writ¬ 
ing. The picket firing here is a settled institution and 
goes on all night, apparently about as fast as they have 
time to load. It seems, however, to do very little harm. 

We are still in a sort of provisional brigade, but I be¬ 
lieve they are organizing a division. Third, of the Ninth 
Corps to be composed principally of the regiments which 
were organized in Pennsylvania last fall. General Hart- 
ranft commands us. I am very much pleased with him 
thus far. 

Our camp is in an open field once a large Virginia 
farm. The old mansion which bears marks of better 
days is occupied by our general for headquarters. Peters- 


io6 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

burg lies nearly west, and is about two or th^ miles 
distant. There ia a fort to our left named for General 
Alexander Hays^of Franklin. Not far from us, and 
nearly in front of us is the “Crater,” or blown up fort 
that was mined last summer, and in the same neighbor¬ 
hood is a work called Fort Hell. From all I can learn 
this is a pretty rough locality. 

I have not heard from you since I left Franklin. I am 
in excellent health. The weather is very mild, clear and 
pleasant. We are putting up quarters with a view of 
remaining permanently. My cabin will be very com¬ 
fortable. There is some possibility that I will command 
a brigade in the new organization, but it depends en¬ 
tirely on the manner of grouping the regiments. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., near Petersburg, 

Dec. 6, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

I went up to the lookout on the Avery House yester¬ 
day. It is about thirty rods from our camp. They have 
some good glasses, and the view is very wide. I took a 
peep at Petersburg. We could tell the time of day by the 
town clock. Then we could see camps of the enemy 
with men washing, combing their hair, lounging and play¬ 
ing. It seemed strange to think that their business was 
to kill us and ours to kill them. 

Last night there was a fire in Petersburg. All the 
bells were rung, and quite a bright light sprang up. Our 
guns did not open on the town. The picket firing has 
declined within the last two days. It was kept up pre¬ 
viously without interruption from dark till daylight. 

The Sixth Corps, or at least part of it, has returned 
to this army. It is by no means improbable that troops 
will be required in Tennessee. I perceive we have had 
some more victories all the time losing ground there. I 
do not like the appearance of things in that region, and I 


Extracts Fro mLetters of General McCalmont. 107 

expect a corps will be sent out- there from this army. In 
that event it will probably be the Ninth. I shall not be 
sorry. I am tired of Virginia. 

I am in excellent health, out of money and somewhat 
lousy, but still very cheerful. I have few wants. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Dec. 14, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

V^e have had four or five very rough days. We were 
sent out to meet the Fifth Corps, which had gone on an 
expedition to destroy the Weldon railroad. The Third 
Division of the Ninth Corps had marching orders on Fri¬ 
day evening, but we only went a mile or two that day, 
and lay all night in a cold rain which froze as it fell. All 
of Saturday we remained in the same position, and in the 
evening moved down the Jerusalem Plank Road. We 
went out about eighteen miles. It rained all the time. I 
never experienced so rough a march. We halted about 
four o’clock in the morning at the Nottaway or some 
other stream. I have not examined the map. Here the 
Fifth Corps had arrived on their way back. They 
crossed on pontoons on Sunday. Our division came back 
Sunday night. The rain had ceased. It was intensely 
cold. I had to walk five miles to keep warm. Some 
cavalry men set fire to every house on the route. It 
made a wild and terrible scene. We reached camp after 
midnight, but were ordered to move again at daylight on 
Monday. We did not go far and after shivering in the 
pine woods until yesterday (Tuesday) evening we were 
at last permitted to return to our old quarters. 

Friday and Saturday nights were the most trying I 
ever experienced. I stood all night Friday near a poor 
fire. My hat and coat were covered with ice half an inch 
thick. When daylight came I felt as glad as Columbus 
when he saw land. 

The march on Saturday night was very severe. The 
rain had swollen the small streams, and the poor men had 


io8 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

to wade right through. The wind was cold and bitter. 
Having lost all sleep the previous night you may suppose 
it was rough enough. 

I hope the winter moves are over. There will be, of 
course, great blowing over the achievements of the Fifth 
Corps, but I cannot see that much has been done. The 
men plundered and burnt, but it is doubtful whether the 
gain will balance the account of frozen feet and ruined 
constitutions. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Dec. i6, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

We have had quite an exciting afternoon. The enemy 
opened on us with a battery that ,we had not previously 
heard from. They seemed to have a particular design on 
our camp. Several of their shell fell in its limits. One 
was buried in the ground about five or six rods from my 
cabin. It exploded after it struck and the surrounding 
earth prevented it from doing any harm. It seems strange 
that none of our men were hurt, for about a dozen shots 
struck close around us, and the poor fellows stood in the 
most exposed situations to see what was going on. They 
were scattered all over the field, having company drill 
when the thing opened. 

Our batteries took the matter in hand and opened with 
spirit, and there was a heavy cannonading kept up from 
two o’clock till sundown. It appears to have done very 
little harm on our side. All is now quiet, but the firing 
of pickets which is generally kept up without interrup¬ 
tion all night long. This state of things has become 
chronic. 

The Third Division of the Ninth Corps was organized 
yesterday. We are in the First Brigade composed of the 
Two Hundredth, Two Hundred and Eighth, and Two 
Hundred and Ninth Regiments, Pennsylvania Volunteers, 
and commanded by Colonel Diven of the Two Hundredth. 

We have an official announcement of another victory 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 109 

by Thomas, also rumors that Savannah has been cap¬ 
tured by Sherman, and that the negro troops have taken 
the Howlett Battery, a formidable fort, which is on the 
left of the Confederate defences at Bermuda Hundred. 
I hope that one and all of these items of good news will 
prove to be true, but you will know by the papers. 

I presume I will be detailed as president of the court- 
martial in a day or two. It will keep my mind employed. 

Lieutenant Colonel Dodd of the Two Hundred and 
Eleventh will be tried for insulting or striking his colonel. 
He seems to know me, but I cannot think who he can be 
unless he is a son of Levi Dodd, of Franklin, and brother 
of Sam. He is a fine looking man, but he will be in a 
bad fix if the colonel’s charges are sustained. However, 
I do not know but that a man might as well be dis¬ 
missed as killed or crippled. I think all of my acquaint¬ 
ances who have left the army, either honorably or dis¬ 
honorably, have been benefited by the change. 

Colonel Diven, who commands our brigade, ranks me 
by a few days. I am the next in rank in the brigade. 
Diven was a captain in the Twelfth Reserves. I believe 
he rose to major, but I was lieutenant colonel long before 
he was a major. This, however, as you know, does not 
count. It makes very little difference to me about com¬ 
manding a brigade for there is no advantage in it to my 
mind worth mentioning, except the privilege of having 
better quarters on the march. 

The evening has resumed the general semblance of all 
other evenings in this region. Some men are singing 
Methodist hymns, members of the band in their quarters 
are practicing on snatches of music with various kinds of 
horns. Trains of cars occasionally hurry past a short 
distance in the rear of our camp, and the pickets keep up 
their steady monotonous firing. I sometimes about this 
time walk out alone and meditate for an hour, but like all 
meditation it ends in nothing very definite in result. 


110 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Dec. i8, 1864. 

My Dear Brother: 

There is a cold drizzling rain this morning, and the 
time within doors drags heavily. I find more amuse¬ 
ment or relief in writing letters at such times than in any¬ 
thing else. I have read the New York Herald of the 
16th clear through. The luminous decision of Judge 
Coursin discharging the St. Alban’s raiders is as clear 
as mud. 

A salute of one hundred guns was fired this morning 
by a battery in the rear of our camp in honor of the vic¬ 
tory of Thomas at Nashville. I am in hopes that an¬ 
other will soon announce the taking of Savannah. The 
late successes in different quarters give us much reason 
to hope that the war will be ended. The Confederacy is 
evidently getting weaker. During the year just closing 
the Rebels have had only one or two victories of a small 
kind to set off against almost a dozen very decided Fed¬ 
eral triumphs, and although there has been no great re¬ 
sult achieved in this quarter it is plain that Grant’s army 
has been steadily gaining ground all the time. In the 
spot where we are encamped the ground has been con¬ 
tested by inches. Everywhere you can see lines of Con¬ 
federate entrenchments from which the enemy were 
driven back by hard fighting, and many of which have 
been levelled to make clear space for new operations. 

If there is anything wanting in our generals here, it 
would seem to be a want of engineering ability. I can¬ 
not help the conviction that we have not enough large 
guns on our line, and that even those in position are not 
kept in active use as constantly as they should be. I be¬ 
lieve a hundred large guns pounding at this point steadily 
would reduce Petersburg in thirty days, but I may be 
mistaken. There are many things that I do not know. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 


Ill 


My Dear Brother: 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Dec. 21, 1864. 


After several days of very clear and mild weather, we 
have now a steady and pretty heavy rain, which threat¬ 
ens to stop raids and movements generally for some time 
to come, but in our position, where we can be shelled at 
a moment’s notice, it is not necessary to move to realize 
that a state of war actually exists. Still there is great 
inconvenience and sometimes suffering on a march at 
this season, and we would rather bear the ills we have 
than fly to others that we know not of. We have not 
been shelled since I wrote last, and probably in a day or 
two we will move our camp about fifty rods to a spot less 
exposed to observation. The Two Hundred and 
Eleventh Regiment, which is lying on our right, is going 
to move to a point near the other two regiments of the 
Second Brigade, and we will, I think, take their vacated 
quarters. There will be several advantages in the change. 

I rode over to army headquarters yesterday. It was a 
very pleasant afternoon. I met some old acquaintances. 
The place looks as lively as a small city. I was almost 
lost among the numerous tents. 

The news from all points is still very encouraging. 
The victory in Tennessee is particularly gratifying, be¬ 
cause our army there having been weakened, and also 
having fallen back a defeat was very probable. Under 
these circumstances it indicates great strength on our side 
for Thomas to attack the enemy in a fortified position 
and carry it by storm. This with the encouraging news 
from Savannah gives ground to hope that the war may 
be ended successfully. The Southerners are very brave 
and self-denying, but they cannot stand everything. 

We had strong rumors of the death of Jeff Davis, but 
at army headquarters yesterday I was informed that there 
was no truth in them. 

An application for a leave of absence from one of the 
captains came back this morning disapproved on the 
ground that the exigencies of the service would not per¬ 
mit it just now, but it was significant that the endorse- 


112 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

ment also stated that ‘‘probably in a short time it will be 
favorably considered.” 

We have not yet seen a pay master. My men have not 
received a cent of either pay or bounty from the United 
States. I have about four hundred dollars coming. It 
will be probably a month before the officer arrives. 


Harrisburg, Jan. i, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

I received your very kind present this morning, I need 
not say I am obliged. I trust that next year we may all 
be together, and some of us better and wiser for our past 
experience. I hear from Alfred almost every day. He 
still continues well, and is sanguine about the approach¬ 
ing termination of the war. The children are in good 
health, and at present are occupied skating. 

The next letter I receive from Alfred I will enclose. 

F. McCALMONT. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Jan. 10, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

We have nothing new here except a few camp rumors 
that our corps is to be sent somewhere under General 
Burnsides, and that General Butler has been relieved. 
The latter is probably correct. I shall not regret it, if it 
should be true, for I regard him as a military humbug. 
The other is more doubtful, for just now there does not 
seem to be as much need of troops in other quarters as 
there is here. 

I am still sitting on a court-martial. We have tried 
several officers of the new regiments. There are no cases 
from the Two Hundred and Eighth. We have a very 
fine set of line officers, and the men are very obedient and 
well behaved. 

It has been raining hard all day. There has been 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 113 

some thunder and lightning with it. This is probably 
not the case in Venango, though I have observed that 
our cold weather comes on about the same days with that 
of New York. 

For a day or two there has been very little cannonad¬ 
ing. To-day there is none at all. There is a dense fog 
between us and the Rebel lines. The firing has not yet 
injured any of my men, though the camp is not protected 
by works, and though several shells have fallen within it. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Jan. ig, i86j. 

My Dear Brother: 

The news of the capture of Fort Fisher was an¬ 
nounced yesterday by a salute of one hundred guns. It 
is a very important achievement. The cause looks hope¬ 
ful. Butler's removal is to me a source of satisfaction. 
He is a confounded old demagogue and humbug. 

Your two oleaginous publications, the newspaper and 
magazine, came to hand. I read them clear through. I 
think they contained a sufficient dose of oil for a month. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Jan. 20, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

I rode over to the One Hundred and Forty-second 
Regiment to-day after our court adjourned for want of 
business. Our surgeon. Dr. Asay, who has been dis¬ 
charged honorably for physical disability, accompanied 
me. We had a very pleasant ride. The distance is about 
three miles. We called on General Crawford, who is com¬ 
manding the Fifth Corps in the temporary absence of Gen¬ 
eral Warren. It is only a month since that corps took its 
present position in the rear of the line, and it is surpris¬ 
ing how the country has changed. It was then a dense 
pine forest. Now it is covered with beautiful camps, 


8 


114 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

regularly laid out. The cabins are all neat and comfort¬ 
able, and the stables are covered with clap boards. Gen¬ 
eral Crawford received us very cordially, and showed 
us his new quarters. They exhibit great taste. It seems 
that every time the men build new quarters they improve 
on their former ones. Our cabins this winter are better 
than any we have ever had. 

We are having reviews and brigade drills every day 
or two. There is less firing than there was some days 
ago. 


Jan. 22, 1864. 

The weather has become very disagreeable. It has 
rained steadily about twenty-four hours. The roads are 
bad enough. All cannonading has ceased, and the picket 
firing is nearly dispensed with. We are living very com¬ 
fortably. Colonel Heintzelman got a large box from 
home filled with good eatables. Many of our officers re¬ 
ceived similar presents. Last evening I took supper with 
one of them, a Captain named Dalien. He is a French¬ 
man, who was educated at the school of St. Cyr, 
and served several years in the French army. He was 
in the battles of Majenta and Solferino. His descrip¬ 
tions of those fights are very clear and interesting, but 
last night he related his experience in recruiting. His 
imperfect English added to the effect. I laughed till I 
was sore. It would be impossible to put his experience 
on paper, but I can give you a faint specimen of a part of 
it. He opened an office to recruit a company, waited two 
days, nobody came, third day a Canadian came who could 
only speak French. He could not go any place else for 
nobody could understand him. Dalien enlisted him, made 
out five muster rolls, walked all the way to Camp Curtin 
to have the man mustered, mustering officer said the pa¬ 
pers were wrong, offered to make new ones, charged two 
dollars. Then says Dalien: ‘T go down, I sit down on 
ze block where zey sells ze meat and ze vegetables (Mar¬ 
ket house), I look at ze two paper, my own and ze one 
made by ze mustering offisair. I see no difference. I 
compare zem carefullee. I find zem both ze same. Yes^ 
Coined, both ze same.” 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 115 

Next he misses his Canadian for three days. He is 
brought to him by an old officer ‘'with wine marks on his 
face” as a deserter. He is put in the guard house at 
Camp Curtin. In a few days the old soldier calls and 
claims the reward of thirty dollars for the arrest, and 
Dalien compromises. 

After going on with his narration of other incidents 
equally amusing, I at last asked him what became of the 
Canadian. His reply was the raciest of all. “The 
Canadienne, Coined, vot became of him, you say. Why, 
Coined, he in ze guard house at Camp Curtin. I forget 
him in ze hurry coming away. He remain. He no speak 
ze English. Nobody in Harrisburg speak ze French. 
He not be able to explain. Probablee, Coined, he remain 
zere till ze close of ze war.” 

Dalien’s is an instance of remarkable perseverance. 
He succeeded in raising a company after ad, now Com¬ 
pany C. By the exertions of a Mrs. Fenn in Harrisburg, 
and some of my own, he has received an appointment as 
aide on the staff of General Hartranft, and his industry 
and military training will ensure him further promotion. 

Jan. 2g, 1865. 

This evening we have several rumors, one that General 
Grant has expressed the opinion that the enemy is about 
evacuating Richmond. Another one is that the Rebels 
are going to cross the Appomattox, and attack our right 
to-night, so we are under orders to be ready to move on 
short notice. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Feb. 7 , i86§. 

Dear Brother: 

Before this reaches you the newspapers will announce 
the admission of Stevens and Hunter and some other 
Southern gentlemen as commissioners. They came in 
last evening at sundown in front of this corps. A car¬ 
riage with four grey horses was waiting for them. Ihe 


116 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Rebels and our men all cheered when they came over. It 
was quite an animating scene. Colonel Heintzelman and 
myself followed the carriage, after it passed through our 
camp, to the railway station where a special train was 
waiting to carry the party to City Point. I recognized 
Stevens and Hunter when they got out of the carriage. 
All men here of all parties wish them God speed, if their 
mission be peace and union. 

We are under orders to be ready to move on short no¬ 
tice. I think we will go to-night. I understand our 
destination is Newbern. I believe our Division alone is 
going. We shall probably soon be on the briny deep. I 
feel rather gratified by the change. We have too much 
monotony here. I have always had an anxiety to see 
some other part of the field than Virginia. Perhaps I 
will get enough of it. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Feb. 5, i86^. 

Dear Brother: 

When I last wrote we were under orders to be ready to 
move at short notice. There was, however, no move. I 
had reason to think that our Corps or Division was in¬ 
tended to go South. This morning we are again under 
orders which indicate a very sudden move in some direc¬ 
tion. It will probably be over toward the left of the line. 

We have heard that Stephens and the other peace com¬ 
missioners were met at Fortress Monroe by Secretary 
Seward, and that they returned yesterday. Arrange¬ 
ments were made here for them to go back at the same 
point where they entered our lines, but they did not arrive 
here. I was told that they went back by the river route 
from City Point. 

The weather has been mild and clear for several days. 
We have been drilling by Brigade and Division. The 
enemy has not been firing much at this point lately. Last 
night there was heavy cannonading on our right. It 
seemed to be a fight between gunboats on the Ap¬ 
pomattox and a battery which is on the same river about 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 117 

a mile and a half from Petersburg. From the peculiar 
condition of the atmosphere the sound was like a young 
earthquake. Each report was like the explosion of a 
magazine, but the firing was too deliberate and slow to 
indicate anything more than the usual bombardment. 

One of my men returned on Friday from Harrisburg, 
where he has been on furlough. He brought with him a 
live turkey as a present to me from his father. He also 
carried in his knapsack a complete uniform for the 
Lieutenant Colonel. He was offered five dollars for the 
turkey by officers at City Point, and he had kept awake 
on the boat to watch it. His virtue and pertinacity of 
purpose had been proof against all temptation and hard¬ 
ship. I told him I would not have done as much for my 
nearest relative. 

The other day, when the flag of truce was sent upon 
the arrival of the peace commissioners, our men and the 
Rebels took occasion to cut down a tree which stood be¬ 
tween the two lines, and which was very desirable for fire 
wood. About a dozen from each side participated in the 
frolic. They cut it down, then cut it up and put it in two 
piles. The choice of piles was amicably settled, and each 
party returned to their respective camps having accom¬ 
plished a small peace mission of a very practical character 
in less time than would take a diplomatist to introduce 
the subject. 


Camp at Avery House, Va., 
Saturday, Feb. ii, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

You have by this time read about the late move. Our 
Division of the Ninth Corps had some share in it, though 
we saw no fighting. We moved on Sunday last and re¬ 
turned yesterday. I thought as we were out that we 
were going to fight, for there was heavy cannonad¬ 
ing away to the left and straight ahead of us in our 
march, but our position was assigned on the right of the 
Second Corps, and the enemy made no attack on us, and 
did not appear on our front at all. 


118 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

We had no tents with us. It rained on Tuesday, and 
was afterward very cold. We suffered some from the 
weather, but we were so near the camps on the left of the 
old line that we got plenty to eat. It seems as if away 
out there they were better supplied with provisions than 
we are. They also have better quarters, but we went 
clear out beyonds the works on the left into the swamps 
and wilderness. After the first night my regiment lay on 
the right of the new line, next to the left of the old. 

We heard all about the fighting from men who came 
back, and I saw the field. My regiment was sent over to 
Second Corps Headquarters yesterday to report to an en¬ 
gineer officer and build corduroy, but the officer did not 
come, and I did not go to hunt him. He was to meet us 
at the Tucker House at a certain hour, but he failed to do 
so, and I had time to look at the ground. We returned 
in the evening to the Division, and then to this camp. 

The movement was intended, I think, merely to 
straighten the line and extend it to Hatchers Run or as 
far as practicable, and I think it has been a great success. 
I will give you a little rough draft showing the old and 
new positions, i. e., before and since last Sunday. The 
line has been extended about three miles, and will un¬ 
doubtedly be held in its present position, for it is very 
strong. 


Feb. ly, 1865. 

Colonel Diven having gone home yesterday on a leave 
of absence I am in temporary command of the brigade. 
Yesterday as officer of the day I rode along the line of 
works and pretended to be doing something, but it is by 
no means probable that any new movement will be in¬ 
augurated as the result of my observations. Soon after I 
returned the enemy’s batteries opened, and kept up a 
vigorous shelling till after sundown. I do not hear of 
any person being hurt. Soon after dark a thunder storm 
passed off toward the South. The thunder was mistaken 
for cannon until it came nearer. I contended that it was 
thunder, but I confess that my opinion was more in con- 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 119 

sequence of the direction of the sound than its character. 

This is strange weather. The 14th and 15th were the 
coldest days of the season. Our ink froze beside the fire 
place with a low fire in it. Yesterday it rained and this 
morning the roads would carry a horse where yesterday 
the mud was knee deep, but such changes are common all 
over the country. 

Colonel Diven will return about the 3rd of March. 
Leaves are now granted for fifteen days. I think I will 
apply for one on his return. It was intimated to me to¬ 
day at Division Headquarters that I had better apply at 
that time, inasmuch as there may be a general order for¬ 
bidding leaves as soon as the time for active operations 
arrives. 

They still keep up this fiction about a season for active 
operations. I can only remember two consecutive months 
that we did not move somewhere, and they were August 
and September, 1863. The roads were perfect and the 
weather pleasant, but we lay in camp at the Rappahan¬ 
nock all the time. 


Washington, D. C., 
March ji, 1865. 

Dear Brother: 

I called on the Secretary of War to-day. His Ad¬ 
jutant had previously heard my explanation of my de¬ 
tention, and caused an order to be entered extending my 
leave of absence till the second day of April. 

Stanton was very kind. He told me he intended to 
give me a Brevet Brigadiership, and possibly a full one. 
I did not introduce the subject. He broached it himself. 
It will be all right after I join the regiment. The ap¬ 
pointment just now would seem a little out of place as I 
was absent during the last fight, but it will be made in due 
time. 

After he had spoken on this subject. Colonel Webster, 
of Maryland, now a member of Congress, came in. He 
affected surprise in Stanton’s presence that I had not been 


120 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

promoted. This fitted the occasion very well. Webster 
was a Colonel in the First Corps. He and I went to 
school together at Carlisle. 


Fitzgerald’s House, 
April 7, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

I believe I have not written to you since I left Wash¬ 
ington. I requested you to keep the matter about my 
promotion secret, but I believe it will not be long in be¬ 
coming public. I had some conversation with General 
Hartranft this evening over a camp fire about it. He 
would be well satisfied to have me command the brigade 
permanently, and will give me a letter to that effect. 

Fitzgerald’s where I am writing is near the South Side 
Railroad two miles west of Blacks and Whites station. 
When I came to the station this morning about three 
o’clock, I asked one of Colonel Dodd’s sentinels if that 
was '‘Blacks and Whites.” He thought I referred to the 
troops, and said “No” and that the colored troops had 
gone on ahead. Maybe you think I made this poor joke, 
but it is a fact, and being the only pleasant incident of last 
night’s travel, I have thought it worth mentioning. We 
soon found that the sentinel was right, for on coming 
through a dark wood our column was halted by a soli¬ 
tary negro posted on the side of the road. He seemed to 
be frightened, and being too black to be distinguished 
from the darkness around him, his unexpected “halt” 
made me a little nervous. Nobody had any right to put 
a sentinel on the road, and the pickets whom we were to 
relieve having been prematurely withdrawn the possibility 
of the fellow being an enemy was by no means too remote 
to be despised. I halted, of course, and sent a man to 
ascertain the nature of the interruption. This little inci¬ 
dent caused some merriment. The idea of one darky 
halting our brag brigade is considered a big joke. 

Blundering around in the dark for a camping place about 
4 o’clock (and I am now satisfied that the darkest hour 
is just before day) we stumbled on Fitzgerald’s planta- 



(tenkral a. J?. McCalmont, 


April 


1865 , 











Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 121 

tion, and I made the house brigade headquarters. It is a 
large and comfortable building, well supplied with feather 
beds. The furniture is good. Some of our musicians 
played the piano this evening. A chaplain went out to 
invite Fitzgerald’s daughters to play for us. They de¬ 
clined. The chaplain seemed to think their conduct very 
unreasonable. I told him, what is the fact, that the girls 
have three brothers in Lee’s army, and referred him to a 
similar incident in an old history, where some people 
hung their harps on the willows and sat down and wept. 

Our business now is guarding the South Side railroad, 
and the trains on the main pike running along it. We 
are relieved at each point by troops from the rear as fast 
as the movements of the army render an advance on our 
part necessary, and they seem to be going pretty fast. I 
think the most ardent avocate of a forward movement 
of the Army of the Potomac would have grumbled a 
little if he had been in my shoes last night. A battle 
had been going on all day in front. The sound of the 
cannon had shown steady progress westward till sun¬ 
down. We had all retired at 9 o’clock, when an order 
came to move out immediately. We accordingly put in 
the night coming from Wilson’s station to this point. 
Every day had been about the same, but it is easier than 
fighting, and even fighting now is not what it used to be. 
The enemy is beaten. 

The news to-day is very cheering. Many prisoners 
were captured yesterday and 17 cannon; more prisoners 
are reported to-day. Ord was in Burkesville before Lee 
reached it. Lee is compelled to re-cross the Appomattox. 
The number of prisoners reported to-day is about 13,000. 
From the sound of the cannon I judge that there has 
been no determined stand made by the enemy. Lee will 
not be able to unite with Johnston. Grant has out-gen- 
eraled him. It looks as if the matter was about over, 
the dog dead and the child’s name Anthony. The people 
here, though Southern in feeling, are tired of the war and 
broken in spirits. They will be glad when the end is 
announced, and the government restored. There may 
be more fighting, but I think not much. I trust the goal 
has been reached. 


122 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

You will get earlier and more reliable news in the 
papers than I can furnish, but you will be glad to know 
that I am still safe and well. I have many more com¬ 
forts than when I commanded a regiment, but there is 
not much danger that I will fall in love with war. It 
is a sad thing to follow in the rear of a defeated army, 
and yet it is the height of military success, and is very in¬ 
spiring. Even at midnight our bands play while march¬ 
ing, and the men often cheer. 

But I am beginning to feel chilly and will retire. The 
staff is snoring, part of it in the parlor, part of it up¬ 
stairs in feather beds. I shall retire to that luxury, too. 
Hartranft’s headquarters are in the woods to-night, about 
a quarter or half a mile farther up the road. 


Nottaway C. H., Virginia, 
April p, i86§. 

My Dear Brother: 

This is a beautiful Sunday morning, in a very beautiful 
country. Our corps was assigned the duty of guarding 
the South Side railroad and wagon trains on the move 
from Petersburg. We have been working our way to 
keep up with the rapid progress of the army, and to 
protect the railroad, which is being rapidly placed in 
running order. 

On Thursday night I made brigade headquarters at 
the house of a man named Fitzgerald. We had a very 
pleasant time of it, sleeping two nights in feather beds, 
but the weather has been so pleasant that I have cared 
very little either for houses or tents. Fitzgerald is a 
Methodist. He has three sons in Lee’s army. Before I 
left him he desired to take the oath. Yesterday after¬ 
noon we moved on to this point, about three miles. At 
the edge of the village we met a vast drove of Rebel 
prisoners marching under guard in no kind of order. 
The road where we met them passes under an arch over 
which runs the railroad. We had to halt and wait till 
they all got through. They detained us nearly an hour, 
though they moved rapidly and were well closed up. Our 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 123 

bands (I have two in the brigade) played “Yankee Doo¬ 
dle,” “Johnny Comes Marching Home,” and other lively 
airs, while the procession passed. There were eight 
thousand three hundred prisoners in it. To see them 
coming through the opening at a double quick almost 
literally reached the idea of subjugation. The Romans 
passed their prisoners under an arch made of spears, 
plied a yoke (sub jugum). I think the railroad arch 
is an improvement on the arch of spears, and better em¬ 
bodies the elements of our success, while it is more sug¬ 
gestive of the results. The scene would do for a painter. 
There were a great many of our troops looking at the 
prisoners, and though there was some joking, I believe 
there was not an insulting word spoken. 

The last stand made by Lee’s reduced army was near 
Amelia Court House on Thursday. For some hours the 
cannonading was very spirited and it was kept up during 
the day. The result of the fight, as reported by Sheridan, 
was the capture of 13,000 prisoners, about 17 cannon, 
and some five or six Rebel Generals. In addition to this 
the troops commanded by Ord occupied the road beyond 
Burkesville. Lee’s retreat toward Danville was cut off. 
There was a little distant firing yesterday, and I presume 
Lee has re-crossed the Appomattox and is trying to get 
to Lynchburg. Even in this attempt he will have some 
difficulty, but I do not see how he can make a successful 
stand any place. This army is very strong and very 
confident. I have no doubt the war is virtually ended. 

General Hartranft wrote a letter to Stanton, recom¬ 
mending my brevet. I forwarded it. I presume I will 

be all right. Colonel - does not stand very high, 

either for spirit or ability. He is at home on a twenty- 
day leave, wounded. Some very good men say a shell 
knocked some dust in his eye. That was what they told 
me when I asked if he was wounded seriously. The 

Adjutant, who is his friend, says he thinks - will 

not return at the expiration of his leave, and that his eye 
is pretty seriously injured. 

Our corps headquarters were here last night, but have 
moved to Burkesville. The weather is lovely. The trees 
are coming into leaf. Fruit trees are in bloom. At night 




124 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

the frogs and whipporwills make a merry chorus. Nature 
seems to be rejoicing. The wheat fields on our way give 
promise of subsistance not to armies, but to an humbled 
and repentent people. 

While at Fitzgerald’s I read in the Bible some. There 
was one touching passage in the close of the book of 
Kings about the rebuilding of the temple. I marked a 
verse where the old men who had seen the first temple 
wept aloud when the foundation of the new one was laid. 
There will be many in this miserable southern country 
who will witness the laying of the new foundation, and 
who saw the old building in its grandeur. The restora¬ 
tion of the good and great things of antiquity is always 
a sublime event. The country may well be glad. 

And yet how many did not live to see it. Noble, brave 
and self-sacrificing, they fell in the hour of gloom. Like 
Moses, they did not reach the land to which they guided 
others. Unlike him, they did not even rise to the sum¬ 
mit which overlooked it, but fell unnoticed and unknown 
in the barren way. It seems hard this bright n^orning, 
when I think of some whom we knew ;''Tlays,^ for in¬ 
stance, and Reno. I cannot help attempting to quote, 
though I cannot do it accurately, Byron’s tribute to How¬ 
ard, who fell at Waterloo: 

“There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, 

And mine were nothing had I such to give, 

But when I stood beneath the fresh free tree. 

Which living grows when thou didst cease to live. 

And saw around me the wide field revive 

With the fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring 

Come forth her work of gladness to contrive. 

With all her reckless birds upon the wing, 

I turned from all she brought to thou she could not bring.” 


Extracts Fro mLetters of General McCalmont. 125 

Nottazvay C. H., Virginia, 
April 12, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

Since Lee’s surrender we have been lying here going 
through all the old routine of military duty as if noth¬ 
ing unusual had happened. We furnish a great many 
safeguards to families in the neighborhood, and our 
pickets guard the railroad with as much vigilance as if 
an attack were every moment expected. 

A train of cars passed us yesterday. It had General 
Grant and staff on it, so it was reported, and some said 
that General Lee was also on it. 

Some people here desire to sell lands. Fine plantations 
can be bought for ten dollars an acre. One man offered 
me two hundred and fifty acres of beautiful improved 
land at that price. Another wishes to sell one thousand 
acres, with improvements, at twenty dollars. Consider¬ 
ing the improvements, the proximity to the railroad and 
the admirable quality of the land, the price is very 
cheap. The climate here is delightful. Spring is earlier 
than with us, and the winters are very mild. The forest 
trees are all coming into leaf. Fruit trees are all-in 
bloom. I presume there is an abundance of peaches. 
Tobacco is raised in great quantities, some farms have 
four, five and six tobacco houses on them.. A man could 
do worse than to come here and live. The stock of the 
South Side railroad could be bought cheap. It runs 
from Lynchburg to Petersburg. Any quantity of fine 
pine land on the Nottaway could be had for a low price. 

The country is beautiful. The soil must be excellent. 
It produces wheat, corn, and tobacco in great quantities. 
It is perfectly free from stones. I believe money could 
be invested here now to great advantage. 

I have not thought much about oil for some days. I 
am so glad that the war is over that I care very little 
about anything else. I presume we will soon go home. 

General Hartranft wrote a letter to Secretary Stanton 
which will probably secure my brevet, but just now I 
should rather go home and attend to business than have 
any military promotion. 


126 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Nottaway C. H., Virginia, 
April 13, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

Part of Sheridan’s Cavalry returned to this point to¬ 
day. Sheridan’s headquarters are in the village. For 
the Virginia spelling of the name, I refer you to the en¬ 
closed official paper. 

I think we will be mustered out soon, but our division 
being composed of new troops, and not much reduced 
in numbers, may be retained till the last. I am anxious 
to go home and get at business. I can see many advan¬ 
tages in this country over ours in climate and soil, but I 
think the reasons in favor of resuming business in Frank¬ 
lin are imperative, and I shall go there as soon as pos¬ 
sible. I would cheerfully waive the chances of a brevet 
to go soon, but the War Department has not the time to 
consider resignations, and the best I can do will be to 
wait patiently for a regular muster out along with my 
command. We have very pretty camps near the railroad 
on the edge of the village. It would be a pleasant trip 
for you to visit us. 


Nottaway C. H., Virginia, 
April Ip, 1863. 

My Dear Brother: 

I have not received any letter from you nor any news 
from Franklin since I returned. It is now nearly a month 
since I left you. I presume you have written, but the 
mails have been at fault. The railroad to this point is 
in very poor order. The weather is, however, becoming 
more settled, and as the ground dries up the trains run 
with more regularity. 

To-day we are observing the occasion of the Presi¬ 
dent’s funeral. No work has been done. Minute guns 
were fired at noon at Burkesville, about twelve miles off 

I am still commanding the First Brigade, Colonel 
Diven not having returned. But this life is rather mo¬ 
notonous. I should like to be at home. 


Extracts From Fetters of General McCalmont. 127 

The weather is very warm. The Q. M. Department of 
our corps have orders to fit up their transportation for 
another campaign. I do not known what it means, but I 
do not apprehend there will be much more fighting. We 
have only about four months, at any rate. 

I presume my promised promotion has been forgotten 
in the exciting scenes at Washington, but it will not 
cause me a single sigh. It is a very empty kind of honor, 
without pay. The only advantage is that one has rather 
better accommodations on a march while commanding a 
brigade, and if Diven returns I will have to go back to 
my regiment unless I am breveted. 

Even the advantage of better quarters is a small one 
in fine weather and while lying still. So I cannot see 
that the promotion matter will affect me in any. way 
worth mentioning. 


Camp near Alexandria, Va., 
April 2g, 186^. 

My Dear Brother: 

The surrender of Johnston announced this morning 
virtually closes the war. I have no idea that this corps 
will be sent South again. It will probably remain here 
until mustered out. 

Yesterday I called at the hospital on Seventh street 
and saw some of our wounded officers. Captain Dalien, 
the little Frenchman, whom I mentioned with the funny 
recruiting experience, is lying with a bullet hole through 
his lungs. I am afraid he will not live. Near him lay a 
Lieutenant dying. He had been doing well, but second¬ 
ary hemorrhage came on, and his eyes were fixed. His 
poor wife was sobbing as if her heart would break. 

We are encamped in a beautiful spot two miles from 
town, near Fairfax Seminary, on the road leading to the 
seminary from King street. 


128 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Headquarters ist Brig., jrd Div., p A. C., 

May 2, i86^. 

My Dear Brother: 

We are still lying near the Fairfax Seminary. My 
headquarters are a few rods south of it on the road out 
from King street. We will probably remain here until 
^‘ze close of ze war.” I think we will be mustered out 
before a month. The three month’s extra pay provision, 
I am told, did not pass Congress. I have not examined 
the laws. 

Our camps here present at sunset an animated scene, 
but you saw more troops here once when things were 
not so bright. 

My promotion seems to have been lost in the big 
events of the month, and I am not very sorry. Its only 
real advantage would be the command of a brigade, and 
that I have now without it. It would be attended with 
the pecuniary inconvenience of buying a suit of clothes 
and equipments for about two hundred and fifty dollars, 
which I should never wear. I am fully reconciled of 
being overlooked. 


Camp near Alexandria, Va., 
May p, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

I went to Washington this morning about 10 o’clock. 
I have received your letter of the 5th this evening since 
returning. It was a rainy, cold, raw day, but I had a 
spring wagon with me (an incident new to a brigade 
commander) and was able to attend to business without 
much inconvenience. I called at Costello’s. His wife, 
Catherine, used to live with us. They are in very good 
circumstances. Stopping at a bank to get a draft on 
Philadelphia to send to my wife, I observed two ladies 
in black depositing a large quantity of small notes. I 
inferred that it was the proceeds of some subscription. 
As they went out I recognized one as Mrs. Douglas, 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 129 

widow of Stephen A. At another place where I stopped 
to buy a keg of ale a very seedy looking individual passed 
along the pavement. He looked a little like Dr. Espy 
in his declining years, was evidently quite drunk. It was 
Robert I. Walker, the old Secretary of the Treasury un¬ 
der Polk. He has been going down hill for several 
years. 

Dining at Hammock’s eating house I met an officer 
from this brigade, who has been on special duty at the 
arsenal lately. He has been in charge of nine or ten 
persons who are implicated in the assassination plot. 
His account of his duties, of the treatment of the pris¬ 
oners and of their behavior made me shudder. The pris¬ 
oners were confined in separate cells, and each had a 
hood or mask fastened over his or her head and face. 
They saw no one. No one could see their features. The 
masks were not removed even to eat. This morning the 
whole party were taken to court-martial, and were still 
hooded. They were there placed near and facing each 
other. The masks were all suddenly removed. It was 
rather a novel fancy. There is something in the idea 
of such a meeting calculated to curdle a man’s blood. 

The trial of these persons before a court-martial is a 
very bold stretch of power. I cannot see that it is either 
necessary or wise. I should have given trial by jury its 
true position. As long as we have a Constitution it is 
worth sticking to. As for the criminals I should care 
very little whether they were hanged, strangled or 
drowned, and I should not have regarded it as a very 
great calamity if they had been lynched by the mob. 
But surely it is a great stretch of power and of constitu¬ 
tional law to try these people by a military commission. 
Perhaps there may be features in their case that bring 
them legitimately within military jurisdiction, but I am 
afraid it is otherwise, and that their trial, conviction and 
execution will only produce one of those fearful reac¬ 
tions so common in history, when the extreme measures 
of a powerful and successful administration suddenly 
change the sentiments of men to horror, disgust and so¬ 
licitude for their own safety. 

It is said that our division will not be mustered out as 


9 


130 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

soon as the rest of the Pennsylvania troops. Several 
orders and the location of our camps look that way. 
General Hartranft himself is put on duty in Washing¬ 
ton, which will probably last all summer. A few days 
ago we were placed in a new camp out here on the Mt. 
Vernon road, two miles from Alexandria. An officer on 
Grant’s staff intimated to me that we might be sent to 
Kentucky, but I think it is not probable. Still I believe 
we will be retained in service a month or more. 

I have been troubled for a month past with rheuma¬ 
tism or lumbago. Lying in a tent this damp weather 
does not improve my symptoms. I think I shall wait a 
few weeks, and if we are going to be retained for pro¬ 
vost duty during the summer, I shall resign. I would 
never make a good police officer. I have beside, some 
aversion to playing soldier in peace times. I should like 
to spend part of the summer at my leisure in some quiet 
place with my family, and not be troubled with any¬ 
thing. 


Camp on Mt. Vernon Road, 
May 12, 1865. 

Dear Brother: 

It is too cold to write this morning. Yesterday was 
warm and pleasant, but there was a severe thunderstorm 
in the evening. It kept up raining and blowing with al¬ 
most incessant thunder and lightning half the night. This 
morning it is so cold that I can hardly hold a pen. I 
presume it will be very warm before two days. 

The troops of the Second and Fifth Corps are begin¬ 
ning to arrive. The army of Sherman will not be far 
behind. The review will come off about the middle of 
next week. 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 131 


My Dear Brother: 


Camp on Mt. Vernon Road, 
May 25, 1865. 


I did not receive your letter, the one written at the 
Continental, until yesterday afternoon after returning 
from the review. It was then too late for a letter to 
reach you at New York, and beside, I was very tired. 

This is a beautiful evening. The view from my tent 
is very fine. Between us and Alexandria twenty regi¬ 
ments are holding dress parade. The air is swimming 
with music. Far off stands the old capitol still untouched, 
and in all its beauty. Cheers and merry voices come up 
with the sounds of bands and drums. It all breathes 
peace and hope. Thank God, there is rest for the weary, 
even here. 

The review was very grand. You ought to have spared 
the time and fatigue to witness it, but you could not 
have seen it all. It was too large for that. I looked at 
it till I was tired, and I presume I did not see the half 
of it. 

We went across the river on Monday. Our division 
was placed away out east of the Capitol during Monday 
night. I established brigade headquarter at a lager beer 
garden. We had our own music, plenty of lager and a 
pretty good time generally. 

The weather had been very bad previously, but Tues¬ 
day morning was perfectly clear. The sky wore a sort 
of Sunday look, and the air was just cool enough. We 
were ready at the hour appointed, and there was no 
delay in the movement. Everything went as if by clock 
work. The Ninth Corps started about ii o’clock. Be¬ 
fore we arrived at the Capitol a few friends made me 
dismount a moment to renew the assurance of their high 
consideration. 

The sight of the Capitol was very imposing. Thou¬ 
sands of clean, well-dressed children were around it. 
They all had bouquets, and the whole scene was like a 
beautiful picture, but they clapped their little hands and 
cheered, and the mass of beauty moved like the flowers 
of the prairie in a summer breeze. The avenue was lined 
with people. House tops were covered and all windows 


132 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

filled. I thought the view of the people was better than 
that of the troops. It is a long distance from the Capitol 
to the President’s when measured by the steady step. I 
think it is about a mile. To look back from the Treasury 
Building down the entire avenue, which filled with bay¬ 
onets, glittered and moved like a river, was one of the 
most imposing sights I ever witnessed. And yet at al¬ 
most any time during the two days you could see in it 
the same stream, but the waters were changing and mov¬ 
ing on. 

At Willard’s some lively young fellows were doing the 
procession systematically on whisky and water. They 
had a large room with big windows in the front of the 
house. One of them, Colonel Shaffner, has been noted 
in ocean telegraph enterprises. He is now experiment¬ 
ing on the most effective mode of exploding powder and 
other combustibles. He and his friends gave me a wel¬ 
come that was very amusing. They had loaded a lot of 
cartridges in a string. Shaffner, by his battery, exploded 
them all at once. It made quite a report. Then the 
party waved some sheets and pillow cases out of the 
window, and proposed three cheers for Colonel McCal¬ 
mont. Some people below helped them a little. The 
thing took me by surprise, but I soon saw the joke and 
laughed as much as anybody. After the corps had 
passed I paid the room a visit, and had a fine view of the 
procession during the afternoon. The fellows were still 
keeping up their welcome. They had a printed program 
of the order of march, and they could thus recognize each 
regimental commander as he came along. Then they 
would call out his name, give him three cheers, and go 
through their usual salute. About 3 o’clock they seemed 
pretty tired, however, and the leader in the business, a 
wag from New York, announced to the satisfaction of 
all concerned that there were only six inches more of the 
thing to do. It occupied about a quarter of an hour 
longer. 

A pleasant little circumstance to me personally oc¬ 
curred near the President’s stand. I had ridden up there 
to look at the Fifth Corps, which made a fine appear¬ 
ance. After a time my old regiment, the One Hundred 


Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 133 

and Forty-second, passed. They gave three cheers for 
the President, and just afterward three more for the 
old commander,” as Geary has it. I can assure you I 
felt the compliment, and felt for my handkerchief at the 
same time. 

I stayed in town Tuesday night, and saw the review 
on Wednesday. There is not much difference in the 
appearance of the two armies. Two or three divisions 
of Sherman’s army spoiled their display by marching 
without their bayonets fixed. 

The whole thing was very grand. I looked at it by 
the hour until I was tired. You could do that, and go 
away without any danger of missing the show. You 
could sleep, if you were so disposed, and on waking up 
the same eternal glittering river of bayonets was still 
flowing on. There was some variety in it, too; half a 
dozen regiments of Zouaves, with their fancy dresses, 
gave quite a gay appearance to the Fifth Corps. Some 
of the bands were magnificent. Occasionally the con¬ 
solidated martial music of a brigade, thirty or fifty drums 
all beating some lively air, would make one’s heart throb, 
though I had begun to think a drum corps rather a dilapi¬ 
dated institution. 

We are working to get mustered out. I think our 
division will go to Harrisburg early next week, per¬ 
haps Monday. I am kept very busy; am president of a 
court-martial, with more cases to try than will ever be 
heard. Also recorder of a board to pass on merits of 
all commissioned officers of the division. I will have to 
work all the time. Colonel Diven has been discharged. 
I care nothing now for a brevet. It will be of no value. 
I am entirely satisfied with everything. I shall leave 
with no unkind feelings toward any person. I hope 
soon to see you all at home. 


134 Extracts From Letters of General McCalmont. 

Harrisburg, Pa., June 2, 1865. 

My Dear Brother: 

I came here with the regiment this morning about sun¬ 
rise. We saw very few people on the street. My wife 
and the children were, however, dressed and, of course, 
glad to see me. I did not go out to camp with the regi¬ 
ment, but remained in town and took breakfast. After¬ 
ward I went to camp, and was annoyed somewhat by 
the pompous airs of a little captain, who is in charge of 
the premises, and who is drawing all the water in the 
small channel of his authority. Our men are well quar¬ 
tered. They will be paid in a few days, and then we 
will be done with the thing. We are already mustered 
out. 

We are all in good health. I received an appointment 
as Brevet Brigadier General, but the notice did not reach 
me until an hour after we were actually mustered out of 
the service. I suppose under the circumstances it would 
be hardly proper to accept it, but the compliment is all 
there is in it, and that is just as strong as it would be with 
a formal acceptance. 




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